The Battle of Canterbury brought the drama as the Malice at Lambeth Palace is still recovering. In the end, Richard Hooker pulled up his three legged stool, and told Thomas Cranmer to grab his prayer book and take a nice little walk down the middle way. Final score Hooker 66.88% to 33.12%. The stool stays undefeated 🪑👑
But we’re just getting started, because today it’s Amy Carmichael vs Edith Stein. The Missionary powerhouse vs Carmelite philosopher 🔥 Both lived fearless faith. Both changed lives. Both make this vote VERY unfair 😅
Only one can advance so it is up to you. Vote now and keep sharing with us how you’re living into Lent Madness!!! 🙌
Amy Carmichael
Amy Carmichael was an Anglican missionary to India throughout the early 20th century.
Born in Ireland in 1867, Amy Carmichael was raised in a very devout Anglican family. Her father moved the family to Belfast when she was 16, but sadly died two years later. However, Amy and her family were already hard at work spreading the Gospel. In Belfast, they started a Sunday School for the girls who worked at the nearby shawl factory. The school grew so quickly that it soon ran out of room. Amy saw an advertisement for a parish hall that could be ordered and assembled out of iron. She raised the money and set it up, calling it the Welcome Hall, in 1887. In 1889, she moved to Manchester to work with the factory girls there.
Meanwhile, she was dreaming of going overseas to do more missionary work. She had attended one of the first Keswick Conventions (gathering of evangelical Anglicans in Keswick, England) and was moved by stories about missionaries traveling overseas to spread the gospel and alleviate suffering. However, when she tried to apply to join the China Inland Mission, she was told that her health was too poor, and she had to postpone her departure.
Amy joined the Church Missionary Society and went to Japan, but stayed only about 15 months. She traveled to Bangalore, India, hoping that the warmer climate would help her health, and just decided to stay and work there. She was commissioned with the Church of England Zenana Mission.
In India, she was stationed in Tamil Nadu and began working with girls who had been abandoned to the local temples. In many cases, this amounted to forced prostitution for the girls. Amy began to take in the girls, slowly creating a whole orphanage for them, complete with a school, a farm, and a whole village to support them. She insisted her fellow workers give the children Indian names, and dress in the Indian ways, so as to better acculturate. She continued at Dohnavur for 59 years, until her death in 1951. The sanctuary she founded continues today, providing a source of healing, education, and nourishment for the whole community.
— Megan Castellan
Collect for Amy Carmichael
Almighty God, whose will it is to be glorified in your saints, and who raised up your servant Amy Carmichael to be a light in the world: Shine, we pray, in our hearts, that we also in our generation may show forth your praise, who called us out of darkness into your marvelous light; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Edith Stein
Edith Stein did not set out to become a saint. In fact, for much of her early life, she was unconvinced that God had anything to do with reality at all and dismissed the notion of the divine. A philosopher by training, Edith’s path to holiness ran through rigorous thinking, deep suffering, and a hard-earned faith.
Edith was born in 1891 into a Jewish family in Breslau, which at the time was part of Germany and now is in modern-day Poland. As a young woman, Edith identified as an atheist, convinced that reason alone could answer life’s deepest questions. She was exceptionally bright, and she pursued higher education at a time when few women did, eventually earning a doctorate in philosophy. Her studies eventually led her to mentorship under Edmund Husserl, one of the founders of phenomenology.
World War I disrupted everything. Edith served as a nurse, tending wounded soldiers and encountering suffering on an intimate scale. The experience sharpened her philosophical inquiry and quietly prepared her for a change she could not yet name. That turning point came in 1921, when she read the autobiography of Teresa of Ávila, reportedly in a single night! Her conversion to Christianity was launched right off the pages of that book. Soon after, she was baptized into the Roman Catholic Church.
Edith did not abandon her intellect when she embraced faith, though it must have been tempting to do so. Instead, she brought her formidable mind into conversation with theology, writing and lecturing on the relationship between philosophy, empathy, and the human person. Her Jewish heritage, her Christian faith, and her academic vocation were never separate compartments. Instead, she carried them as strands of a single, holistic life in pursuit of truth and meaning.
As the Nazi regime rose to power, Edith’s career options narrowed. Anti-Jewish laws stripped her of her teaching position, and in 1933, she followed a path that had been closed to her previously. She entered the Carmelite convent, taking the name Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, following the invitation of her faith to use her gifts to serve God and God’s people through her devotion.
In 1942, after being moved to the Netherlands where it was deemed safer for them, Edith and her sister Rosa were arrested by the Gestapo in retaliation for the public condemnation of Nazi antisemitism by the Dutch Catholic bishops. Many non-Aryan Roman Catholics were deported to Auschwitz, including Edith and Rosa, and were killed shortly after their arrival.
Canonized in 1998, Edith Stein stands as a witness to the unity of faith and reason, and to a holiness that refuses simplification. She reminds us that seeking truth with integrity can be a sacred act, and that discipleship may demand not certainty, but courage, clarity, and a willingness to carry the cross where it leads. What might she teach us today about the intersection of faith and reason?
— Samantha Smith
Collect for Edith Stein
Pour out your grace upon thy church, O God; that, like your servant Edith Stein, we may always seek what is true, defend what is right, reprove what is evil, and forgive those who sin against us, even as your Son commanded; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom with you and the Holy Spirit be all honor and glory, now and for ever. Amen.
88 comments on “Amy Carmichael vs. Edith Stein”
I love this poem by Amy Charmichael
Hast thou no scar?
No hidden scar on foot, or side, or hand?
I hear thee sung as mighty in the land,
I hear them hail thy bright ascendant star,
Hast thou no scar?
Hast thou no wound?
Yet, I was wounded by the archers, spent.
Leaned me against the tree to die, and rent
By ravening beasts that compassed me, I swooned:
Hast thou no wound?
No wound? No scar?
Yet as the Master shall the servant be,
And pierced are the feet that follow Me;
But thine are whole. Can he have followed far
Who has no wound nor scar?
My grandparents were Presbyterian missionaries in Uttar Pradesh province of India all their adult lives, where they raised their 5 children including my Mom in a bicultural and lingual home. Amy Carmichael deserves votes for long service to the downtrodden of India!
Super-hard choice today. Edith Stein’s story is so powerful and tragic. Amy Carmichael’s story was unknown to me. St. Celia’s bitter but spot-on words notwithstanding (what a disaster last night revealed!), I’m going with Amy Carmichael, who didn’t let her own frailty stand in the way of helping incredibly vulnerable children avoid exploitation; may we all be so strong in our own time and situation. Also Amy’s story was written by Megan+, my friend from Bruton days.
“ Amy saw an advertisement for a parish hall that could be ordered and assembled out of iron. She raised the money and set it up…”
Amazing.
I noticed that, too! I bet that iron hall is still standing.
And she was 20 years old at the time
A disabled contender (neuralgia, a debilitating nerve disease) AND from Ulster?!
No way I can't vote for Amy!
A truly impossible choice today. Thanks to both bloggers for excellent essays. I ended up voting for Amy because of her respect for the Indian culture in which she worked.
The vote is very close at this point. I expect Edith will win, and she is ahead by 7 votes at this point. I ended up voting for Amy, because of her support for young girls throughout her career--in Ireland, England, and India. I also really liked the fact that she encouraged the girls to keep their Indian names and dress.
I voted for Amy because of her deep sensitivity to the needs of these abandoned and abused girls and maintaining their culture and language. She modeled inclusion and seeing the girls in their own dignity and reaffirming their lives.
didn't have a coin handy, went with Amy
I greatly appreciate Amy for ensuring that the girls / young women in her care held onto their cultural identity and customs, in these days when we are learning more and more about the cultural genocide committed by colonialists and misguided missionaries over the past two centuries.
However, I'm completely awestruck by the whole trajectory of Edith's lifelong quest for knowledge, truth, and walking in paths of mercy and righteousness ... all the way to the cross of martyrdom. My daughter has forged a similar path in the opposite direction. She and her longtime partner -- now husband -- explored each other's religious backgrounds thoughtfully and open-mindedly. And with scholarly rigor, intellectual passion, and whole heart, she converted to Judaism 2 years ago! I could not be prouder of her. (Of course, she'll still always be my little PK, but now I get to be a Jewish mother!)
Having trouble . Internet not available screen says. Second time couldn’t vite, fielrst day and then another.
Very unfair pairing! I went with Amy by a whisker as the caring for unwanted girls is still needed today. I had never heard of either women and look forward to learning more about each of them.
Both so very worthy, and I knew of neither before today, which is what Lent Madness is for! I’m going to support Edith because she sounds like me except for the Jewish heritage: raised in no faith, choosing agnosticism before meeting Christians. And it won’t hurt to keep everyone fresh on the actions of Nazi Deutschland, for very obvious reasons.
Boy! Edith was something else! Her time with Christ must surely been powerful! Like Edith MT is my person. I hope to soon go to India to volunteer in her hospital.
All that being said, I voted for Amy! Her backstory I found very compelling. As a retired special education elementary school
teacher for 40+ years, I felt that I was first and foremost doing mission work. Education not just the three Rs; teaching how to love, faith, forgiveness, kindness….with wealthy, poor, abused, mentally ill- to All of His children!
I deeply admire Amy's life and witness and her profound sense of service, however Edith's story won my vote today, for her integration of her faith and learning and for courage in a time of hatred.
My own faith has been enriched by having deep friendships with people who are from different traditions. I appreciate Edith's story for illustrating there is no one people that God loves. We are all loved unconditionally.
Tough choice. Voted for Edith because we are in a “they came for me” moment-yet again.
I am concerned because this year, you seem to be able to vote more than once. I know you should be able to trust people to vote only once, but at least one day, I saw some last-minute surges.
Respectfully
These are the hardest choices EVER.
Both are remarkable, but Edith got my vote today because women can be philosophers!
I guess my punishment for complaining that I get my emails a day late was that today, I got the one for Peter and Paul two days late.
Both are great women. However, intentional or not Amy Carmichael worked as part of the British Colonial Empire and its policy to insert evangelical Christians into its colonies. Edith Stein was martyred as part of the punishment of the anti-Nazi Catholic Church of The Netherlands. In my view, especially now, there is no contest when one thinks about it.
I have been having trouble voting, too I did try going through FB, but no better results.
Interesting! It took me 10 minutes to make up my mind. When I saw the vote results, I wondered exactly what criteria others used to decide. I used several, going back and forth.
Voted yesterday on the website with no issues. Today Edith has my vote. The conversion, the Nazis, and the martyrdom did it for me.
Won't be disappointed by any outcome today. Delighted to learn more about these courageous pillars. Grateful they were born!
I voted for Amy because of her work with poor girls and because of her insistence on keeping Indian culture. Also because my Dad taught in the Anglican seminary in Bangalore in the 70s and my daughter was there last week helping the city achieve zero waste.
I actually want to read works by Edith Stein after this introduction to her
I've long been aware of Edith Stein, and have long admired her for standing her ground. However, after meeting Amy Carmichael today, I was awestruck with all she did to help Indian girls all while ensuring that their culture not get lost in the midst if progress. What a lasting tribute and memorial she created that still lives on today.
Won’t let me vote!