In the last battle of a full week, John Wesley takes on Edith Cavell. Will the Methodists among us rally the troops for the de facto founder of their denomination? Or will the compelling story of an English martyr carry the day?
In Thursday's action, upstart Maria Skobtsova soundly defeated Thomas à Kempis 74% to 26% to advance to the Saintly Sixteen where she'll face Quiteria. Thursday was also a big day for Lent Madness fans in Hannibal, Missouri, as an article titled Churchgoers Participate in Lent Madness Activity made the front page of the local paper, the Herald-Whig. Kudos to all the Lent Madness fans at Trinity Episcopal Church in Hannibal!
As we prepare to take a deep weekend breath, please do try to survive without voting on Saturday and Sunday. Symptoms of Lent Madness Withdrawal (LMW) are real and we encourage you to reach out to Lent Madness-playing friends and family to see you through this two-day wilderness. LMW support groups are forming in church basements everywhere. And fear not! We'll return bright and early Monday morning as Esther takes on Lazarus. Now go read and vote!
John Wesley
The impact on the religious landscape made by John Wesley is undeniable and far-reaching. John was an Anglican priest and theologian and the founder of the Methodist movement.
Born in 1703 in England, John was the son of a clergyman and the youngest of fifteen children, including his brother Charles, a well-known hymn writer and Anglican priest. At five years old, John survived near-death in a rectory fire—he was saved thanks to parishioners who formed a human ladder to rescue him. This event marked him for life.
He was highly educated and a graduate of Christ College, Oxford. At school, he prayed and studied scripture with his brother, Charles; their friend, George Whitefield, also a priest; and others in a group deemed “Methodists” because of their method of spiritual disciplines.
Ordained in 1728, he and Charles were sent in 1735 to Savannah, in what was then the British colony of Georgia. John did not fare well—there were personal issues and ineffective ministry. After two years, he returned to England in defeat. While onboard, through stormy waters, he befriended Moravians and took to their ways, which he found calming and Spirit-filled. John underwent a religious experience in 1738, in which he said his “heart strangely warmed.” He believed that God charged him with initiating a revival in the church. He parted ways with the Moravians and embarked on his own ministry. Along with Charles and George, John traveled the country, forming Christian groups and worshiping communities. The Methodist movement flourished.
He became a prolific preacher and writer, delivering an estimated 40,000 sermons in his life. John wrote or edited more than 400 publications on issues such as theology, music, prison reform, marriage, medicine, slavery, and politics. Some of his more famous works include Forty-Four Sermons, Notes on the New Testament, Thoughts Upon Slavery, and Collection of Psalms and Hymns, the first Anglican hymnal published in America.
Wesley died on March 2, 1791, at the age of eighty-seven. In 2002, John Wesley ranked number 50 in the BBC’s poll of the 100 Greatest Britons.
Collect for John Wesley
I am no longer my own, but yours. Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will; put me to doing, put me to suffering; let me be employed for you, or laid aside for you, exalted for you, or brought low for you; let me be full, let me be empty, let me have all things, let me have nothing: I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things to your pleasure and disposal. And now, glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, you are mine and I am yours. So be it. And the covenant now made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.
Edith Cavell
When Edith was a young girl in the late 1800s, she informed the bishop that her father’s church in Swardeston, near Norfolk, England, needed a room for the growing Sunday School. The bishop offered help—so long as Edith raised money as well. Edith and her sister began painting cards and raised some 300 pounds (about $30,000 in today’s funds), and she contacted the bishop. St. Mary’s, Swardeston, built the addition, and Sunday School classes thrived.
As an adult, Edith continued her life of service. Her early work as a governess in Belgium was interrupted when she returned home to Swardeston to nurse her father back to health. This experience led Edith to explore nursing, and she was eventually placed in charge of L’Ecole Belge d’Infirmieres Diplomees, a nursing school for women in Brussels.
World War I began, and Brussels was invaded. Edith was visiting family in England, but she immediately returned to Brussels. Realizing the danger for citizens and soldiers alike, Edith helped provide an underground escape route for those fleeing to the Netherlands. More than 200 soldiers escaped to safety. German military authorities discovered her acts. Edith confessed—which likely saved the lives of others who assisted her—and was sentenced to death.
As she awaited execution, the Germans allowed an Anglican priest to visit her. He recalls that in their final meeting, Edith received communion and prayed, expressing forgiveness toward her executioners. She said, “I thank God for this ten weeks’ quiet before the end. Life has always been hurried and full of difficulty. This time of rest has been a great mercy. But this I would say, standing as I do in view of God and eternity, I realize that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness toward anyone.”
Edith’s execution on October 12, 1915, horrified the world. Her grace stunned even her captors. After the war ended, Edith’s remains were exhumed, and she was reburied with great ceremony in a cemetery near her childhood home in Swardeston.
Edith believed that patriotism must be examined through love for our fellow humans and through the commandment of Christ to love and forgive without regard to nationality, ethnicity, or our own bitterness.
Collect for Edith Cavell
Holy God, in grace and mercy your Son asks us to love our enemies and forgive those who persecute us: Grant us the desire to follow the example of your servant Edith Cavell who, in your name, healed the wounded, guided those in danger to safety, and forgave those who persecuted her as she was sustained by your word and sacrament; through the name of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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251 comments on “John Wesley vs. Edith Cavell”
Geez, intellectuals whose works have had a profound and lasting international impact just don't stand a chance in these matchups. I voted for John Wesley.
Seems to be the case for 2018.
I voted for John Wesley -- he continues to inspire me towards a faith involving both deep emotional transformation and social action -- but I have great respect for Edith Cavell. By the way, there is a mountain named for her in Jasper National Park, Canada. It is over 11,000 feet tall. Appropriate -- she is a towering figure to look up to.
Exactly.
As a nurse, I was very impressed to learn of Edith Cavell during a trip to Alberta. She has my vote today. What greater love.
Such a tough call today. As a nurse, I lean to Edith Cavell, and admire her work and her forgiving her enemies. Yet as the Episcopalian wife and daughter of Methodists, I cannot help but admire John Wesley, an Anglican who showed us a different way. God bless them both!
As a child I was given a book of biographies of famous women. Edith Cavell was among them, and while I didn't recall exactly what she had done, I knew she had shown great courage in terrible times. As the profile makes clear, John Wesley was a seminal figure in the development of Protestantism. As someone who was raised Roman Catholic, I've never understood why or how there came to be so many denominations within the Protestant universe. Maybe it's just my ignorance talking, but if John Wesley was the father of Methodism, doesn't that make him part of the fragmentation process? I would never tell anyone else how to worship, but I wonder what God makes of all these distinctions and divisions. My vote is for Edith, who made no distinctions when it came to love and forgiveness, and who put her life on the line for others.
Edith's story is so compelling!
I am to much of a Methodist not to vote for John Wesley. Someone has probably already noted this but there are two errors in the information about Wesley. He was one of at least 19 children, although only 10 survived beyond the first year. Also John's brother Charles was the youngest of them all. His mother Susanna Wesley must have had saintly qualities for she had a hand in the education of all 10 of her children.
A common theme indeed. Madness for certain.
Thanks for posting this, Gene.
The collect is in fact, Wesley's Covenant Prayer. I wish the blogger had identified it that way.
And her husband Samuel was much less than saintly.
It seems to be a year for women in Lent Madness also. But I must vote for John Wesley whose message meant so much to my Welsh and Cornish ancestors. They were poor working men and women and Chapel mattered a great deal. Especially to the women. Cordelia Hocking Hoskins was heart and soul of her Methodist Church in Sutter Creek, California and would have been so proud that one of her great grandsons was later the pastor of this church.
Wesley was not only an intellectual and mystic, but a very practical man. When he saw how most of the population was suffering from a lack of health care and knowledge, he published a book on prevention and remedying of illness, to be distributed among the poor.
For me this was the hardest one yet. They are both outstanding. I voted for John Wesley because
he had the largest influence on the church as a whole.
This is a bad year for Celebrity Bloggers named David! Both David Creech and David Hansen have brought us two saints, and all four have lost. Sorry, guys. I actually voted for two of your saints (one each)! (I accidentally posted this comment on yesterday's match-up, so I am repeating it here where I meant to put it.)
Another example of forgiveness
"...personal issues and ineffective ministry." That's a mild way of putting it. Nevertheless I voted for him. Having served about 25 years in United Methodist churches, and now, in my later years being very active in what I call "an Episcopal congregation with a Wesleyan spirituality," there was no hesitation on my part...moved though I was by Edith's life.
as an UMC-er, a vote for Wesley would have been nepotism 😉
besides, he gets all the credit and more than he needs.
let's hear it for Edith!
Gary
WHERE ARE THE KIDS TODAY?!?
Yet another male with lasting achievements in the intellectual, spiritual, and institutional side of the church, the "gathered community," up against a female who served courageously in the world. I guess on one day I'll go for the one, and on another day I'll go for the other, as both gifts are essential.
I was definitely moved by Smith's story, but in the John Wesley got my vote for the breadth and deep influence his work had on the church. The Methodist branch of my family would be proud of this cradle Episcopalians choice.
It's supposed to be Edith. Darn autocorrect! They aren't even close.
Hahaha! It extrapolated on the "-ith"!
Oh and I might as well be completely annoying and pedantic and comment that the prayer for (of?) Wesley, while lovely and moving (and, I assume, historic), is most definitely NOT a collect.
A collect follows a fixed form: it begins by calling on God and citing some attributes of God, then moves on to a petition that God would help us in some specific way in our journey of faith, hope and love; then ends with an invocation of Jesus Christ our Lord and of the Trinity. This prayer is a totally different kind of address to God -- a personal, intimate prayer of devotion and self-dedication.
Also a collect is always prayed in the plural -- it addresses God from the standpoint of "us," not "me."
Gretchen, you are absolutely right on collects! There is another minor cavil on the write-up too: Wesley's college 's name is 'The House of Christchurch', not 'Christ College'. Minor, but does not encourage confidence in the writer. I could have gone either way today but chose Wesley.
Oh God, who has raised up witnesses to the inbreaking of your kingdom on earth, grant that we may be no longer our own but yours, that we may be most fully ourselves through loving and serving your children, in the name of God the creator, Christ the redeemer, and the Holy Spirit our guide, amen.
"... patriotism must be examined through love for our fellow humans and through the commandment of Christ to love and forgive without regard to nationality, ethnicity, or our own bitterness." There are some current American political leaders who need to read, believe, and follow Edith's example. Edith gets my vote. What an incredible life of faith, service, love, and sacrifice.
Well, it's easy to see why Edith is stomping John with her truly inspiring story, but as a musician, I have to go with the hymnodist.
Modern saints are getting the votes this year. I confess I have contributed some, but not on this one.
"Modern" saints always seem to win in LM, "modern" being those in the age of photography. The exceptions have been Golden Halo winners Mary Magdalene, Charles Wesley, and St. Francis. In daily contests, female saints, social reformers, and "modern" folk tend to win over contemplatives and those from antiquity. We've yet to have a Golden Halo bestowed on anyone of color, or a contemplative or theologian per se, unless you count Mary Magdalene. Interesting.
Just for clarity -- the Wesley for this contest is John. His brother Charles was the hymn writer par excellence. John wrote some hymn texts but he is known primarily for his preaching and writing.
Also just for historical accuracy -- Charles Wesley won the Golden Halo in Lent Madness 2014. In that year's contests, John and Charles faced off in the first round!
Indeed!
Wesley... 40,000 sermons in his lifetime? approximately 60 yrs of active ministry, 365 days/yr would mean 1.8 sermons per day 7 days / week!! Lasting impact to Christianity... voted for him however now realizing that the "underdogs" are consistently winning.
I noticed the underdog theme as well. It seems as if some people are largely voting for the lesser known candidates throughout. Not sure if this is a reaction to something or just a general groundswell for the underdog.
How about we're voting for the candidate we want to win because we feel they are the most deserving?
Yes. It’s true some titans of Anglican doctrine and evangelism have been set aside in favor of some humble folk of little fame. Those are the daily saints who live the Word of God, and I’m drawn to them.
The prayer labeled "Collect for John Wesley" is a traditional part of the "Wesley Covenant Service" liturgy, frequently used in services on New Year's Eve or New Year's Day. The wording comes directly from John Wesley's writings, though he attributes the foundations to Richard Alleine. Read more about that prayer on Wikipedia at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wesley_Covenant_Prayer or by searching for Wesley covenant prayer.
John Wesley was adamantly opposed to fracturing the Church. He remained an Anglican all his life, but his followers -- especially in the American colonies -- wanted to have their independence, and so the Methodist Church became a political-social necessity. I do not know Wesley's attitude toward the Roman Catholic Church, but in his time there was no way to bridge the gap between the so-called Papists and the official state church (Anglicanism). Wesley and his close followers participate regularly in Anglican masses, and they created "chapels" for their own small groups and for carrying out their work of evangelism.
**participated**
Well stated.
Thank you, Gene. That's helpful.
Not sure yet what my group deems as our "method "of spiritual disciplines, but maybe that's why Methodist and Episcopalians have some commonalities. Interesting learning but still if I could do just a little of what Edith did, all of us would be better off. She gets my vote.
Every year I put the Lent Madness Bracket Poster up on my wall at work. I do get some questions from co-workers as to what it is about, but after 4 years they are getting use to seeing it. This year one of my co-workers came in and said his prediction was that Edith Cavell was going to win the golden halo. I asked what he knew about her and he said, "absolutely nothing about the person, but one of Man o' Wars fillies had that name and though not a triple crown winner, she was a winner. I was going to vote for Edith on his behalf just for fun. As I read Laurie's write up, I remembered the story even though I had forgotten Edith's name. I see why someone would want to honor her in anyway they could. Edith may not have the world renown that John has, but throughout her life she changed her corner of the world by answering God's call right where she was and all was done for the glory of God. Oh that more of us could have her courage in our own environments.
Really I have to wonder if more women than men are playing the Madness game and if that is why women are trouncing men so often. I voted for John Wesley because of his immense impact on Christian history and, as a singer, because of his hymnody.
You think men wouldn't vote for a worthy woman candidate? Or be supportive because women have been "down" in the past. Not sure that's accurate, at least among the men I know.
What a stunning story about Edith, a saint in my book if there ever was one. Raised Methodist, I almost instinctively went for John Wesley, but Edith -- namesake of my grandmother, great aunt, and favorite aunt, all now deceased -- gets my vote!
I vote for Wesley, because he had a major impact on American church life. The Methodist Church has been a champion of human rights for a long time. His religious journey mirrored mine.
Not so with most of the Methodist churches of my experience. Another of the reasons why I'm an Episcopalian today.
I agree that Methodists have long been supportive of human rights--at least they were when I was a United Methodist (that name change itself speaks to its position on race relations). There's been a more conservative tilt in the last 20 years or so, I'd say, with the struggle to have the LGBTQ community accepted into ordination, but I still think the United Methodist Church is pretty darn progressive. (Please correct me if I'm wrong on the ordination issue.)
You are correct. Consecutive General Conference have failed to remove that proscription. Right now, there is a Committee on the Way Forward working to purpose an amicable result. How successful they will be....
As much as I admire John Wesley, I was really moved by Edith's story today. God bless these unsung saints and their acts of faith in the face of grave danger. Would that I could live my life with even a portion of Edith's bravery and resolve.
I was just going to make my mark for JW and move on, but something made me stop and read about him (once again) and then read about Edith - first time ever. Naturally I ended voting for Edith. Like so many here have said, we NEED her TODAY!
Being a graduate of a nursing school where I lived in the Edith Cavell Residence during my training MANY years ago, I thought my vote was cast even before I read the bios. I am thrilled to say my vote would have gone to Edith even without the personal historical connection. Her message of forgiveness - wow.
As a history professor, I have known of Edith Cavell for many years, but I am once again astonished by her life and faith. Wesley is a towering figure, but I just must vote for Edith.
I voted for John Wesley on the following grounds:
1. his strong and active opposition to slavery,
2. his rejection of Calvinism (at a time when Calvinism was still strong in the C of E) and his optimism both regarding the grace of God and regarding human nature,
3. his willingness to learn from RC and Orthodox figures of the faith (in an era when "popery" was suspect in the C of E),
4. his commitment to the ensuring that Christian faith and practice were accessible to the working classes (both urban and rural),
5. his commitment to ensuring that the Methodist movement he funded remained within the C of E, his profound sadness at the parting of the ways that was beginning to happen during his later years, and the great hope that reconciliation is taking place in the UK at present.
LOL!
Good reasons.
Surely a match-up between Sr. Maria from yesterday and today's Ms. Cavell would have been a far more logical choice (two 20th c. martyrs), as would a Wesley-Kempis match-up, for that matter.
Yes! I love that the saints have been paired up better chronologically. I'm curious, though, to see what would happen if saints with similar callings were paired together as well.