The Final Race Read online

  After Kilmarnock, Eric and D. P. traveled to Glasgow to hold meetings at the Dundas Street Congregational Church, where James Liddell had been ordained so many years before. Between 450 and 600 people showed up each night of the campaign. Eric “steadily gained in confidence, in clarity of thought, and in preaching power,” D. P. penned in a letter home.[25]

  Seminary began in October. In addition to Eric’s new studies, he continued to serve as Sunday school teacher at Morningside, remained president of the Young People’s Union, and honored his commitments to the weekend speaking events with D. P., which often included a pre-meeting race or rugby match.

  The life of the seminary student, Eric had quickly learned, was one of discipline and devotion to God. To walk in the footsteps of the seminary professors was an important aspect of theological training. Mere head knowledge would not do.

  Eric plunged headlong into the hermeneutical debate shaping the ecclesial landscape. He became familiar with Harry Emerson Fosdick’s theological writings. Fosdick was an American Baptist pastor who resided in New York and served at a Presbyterian church in Manhattan’s West Village. He’d become a leader in the rising controversial issue between fundamentalist and modernist theologians. The fundamentalist-modernist controversy had spilled over into multiple denominations and centered on how to interpret the Bible.

  The modernists speculated that the Bible contained a certain amount of history, a kernel or husk of truth that had bloomed into myths, legends, and folklore. The fundamentalists argued that this way of thinking was a perilous road littered with potholes of presupposition. If the Bible were not infallible, that could mean that man had not been made in the image of God. Furthermore, miracles would be nonexistent; so much for Creation, the Virgin Birth, the deity of Christ, his resurrection, and his atonement for the world. To follow that path to its logical conclusion, the fundamentalists argued, would lead toward agnosticism and ultimately atheism.

  Fundamentalists rejected the false impression that they employed an ignorant use of hermeneutics, the branch of knowledge dealing with interpretation. They defended only a literal interpretation of Scripture, where the context of each passage was king—poetry should be read as poetry, descriptive literature as descriptive, prescriptive as prescriptive. The limited range of possible interpretation meant that truth was apparent even in translation, so translations of the Bible could be confessed to be God’s infallible Word, speaking to his people in the nuances of language that he created for them to use.

  And this debate shaped and reshaped Eric Liddell.

  Ultimately, Eric endorsed primarily a literal interpretation of the Bible, even though many in the Congregationalist Church were drifting toward modernist thinking. Years later, while writing his own discipleship book about studying the Bible, he quoted a sermon by John Wesley: “If any doctrines within the whole compass of Christianity may be termed ‘fundamental,’ they are doubtless these two: . . . justification . . . relating to that great work which God does for us, in forgiving our sins . . . [and] the new birth . . . relating to the great work which God does in us, in renewing our fallen nature.”[26]

  Eric took seriously the four disciplines of the seminarian—systematics, exegetics, history, and practical application. But every theologian gravitates to one, and Eric easily zeroed in on the practical discipline—simply conveying the gospel to people.

  D. P. Thomson continued to arrange for speaking appointments for himself and Eric. In his campaign speeches with Thomson, Eric led with a subdued voice, offering a vivid picture of what a Christian life was like based on his own uniquely interesting experiences. Then Thomson followed up with a thunderous voice as the closer, calling those in the audience to commit their lives to Christ.

  Although they were different in their approaches, Eric understood that much of the intense zealousness in Thomson’s message had been born out of pain. He’d lost a brother and five cousins in the tragedies of the Great War and was occasionally prone to despair.

  D. P.’s drive was in knowing that time was of the essence. Therefore, he didn’t skirt around the issues in his messages or his emotional delivery.

  D. P.’s one remaining brother, Robert, was equally passionate about evangelizing. Eric enjoyed Robert’s company greatly on those occasions when he joined them for campaigns.

  For D. P., Eric’s continuing enthusiasm and his following brought great rejuvenation.

  Although Eric understood D. P.’s fiery decision theology, he wrestled with reconciling the relationship between the law of God’s Word and the gospel as he slowly tried to work out how to strive under the law and yet, at the same time, be content to live under the gospel. His approach when speaking was to compare faith to common ordinary experiences he could easily draw upon, such as from the science lab or the sports field. “We are here to place before you the call and challenge of Jesus Christ,” he would say.

  Many of us are missing something in life because we are after the second best. We are placing before you during these few days the things we have found to be best. We are putting before you one who is worthy of all our devotion—Christ. He is the Savior for the young as well as the old, and He is the one who can bring out the best that is in us.

  Are you living up to the standards of Jesus Christ? We are looking for men and women who are willing to answer the challenge Christ is sending out. If this audience was out and out for Christ, the whole of Edinburgh would be changed. If the whole of this audience was out for Christ, it would go far past Edinburgh and through all Scotland. The last time Edinburgh was swept, all Scotland was flooded.

  Then he would pause for effect. “What are you going to do tonight?”[27]

  Eric and D. P.’s dynamic evangelism teamwork bore much fruit, but they were not without critics who questioned their tactics of playing on the emotions of the crowd. But thanks to his pre-Olympics experiences, critics were not new to Eric.

  Leaving the critics to question him was fine . . . as long as he was okay in God’s eyes.

  As had been his habit for most of his life, Eric continued corresponding with his parents. When he shared both the positive and the negative press he and D. P. had received, his father wrote to the London Missionary Society secretary expressing his feelings and offering some perspective on the situation:

  It is certainly very gratifying that Eric has so fully entered into this spiritual experience, and is desirous of passing on what is his possession, that others might also enjoy the same. My wife and I are perfectly sure he has the illumination that will be as an anchor for life if he keeps in touch with Jesus Christ. We are very glad the team is not stressing theology as such, but getting the young life to face their personal relation to the Saviour. . . . From what we know of Eric we are sure he will not seek to harrow any one’s feelings, or seek to publicly uncover what any one wishes to be kept sacred. But I guess he’ll want very honest dealing as between individuals and their Lord. We could never dream of connecting Eric with sensational methods. Our hope is that the churches will be helped, and many young people make the great decision.[28]

  Eric’s speaking engagements with D. P. drew such crowds, and were so frequent, they hampered Eric’s studies during that school year. Eric counterbalanced working through his own theological perspectives via reading, studies, lectures, chapels, sermons, and worship with subtly applying these perspectives in his own evangelism efforts.

  But a new problem arose.

  Eric had become involved with the Oxford Group—a term coined for Rev. Frank Buchman’s theological and lunchtime gatherings of Christian men. Buchman was a mission-minded Lutheran minister from the United States. The Oxford Group subscribed to a number of Christian principles Eric already believed in, but they also afforded him the opportunity to consider new thoughts and principles that Eric then embraced, embodied, and would later reflect as bedrock disciplines of the Christian. Eric’s old ideology contrasted with some of the principles he picked up from the Oxford Group.

  Say
ing yes to every request felt easiest but only proved to be exhausting. Every man has his breaking point, even one described as being “pure gold through and through.” Eric lamented his struggles to his parents, which prompted his concerned father to write again to the LMS: “We hear that Eric is having strenuous times between work and meetings. We hope he will not undertake too much while still doing study. He is one who finds it difficult to refuse work.”[29]

  Studying, speaking, training, racing, traveling, and keeping up with correspondence and endless requests pulled Eric in too many directions. Something had to give.

  Soon.

  The resident pastor at Morningside Congregational Church, Rev. Moffatt Scott, had always been supportive of Eric’s ministry and active Sunday school leadership. He offered Eric the opportunity to preach to the youth a few evenings a week from the pulpit. Despite the nearly crushing schedule he lived under, this was a wonderful chance for Eric to partner with his closest support system and to serve the immediate community that had ministered so much to him.

  Eric could not refuse.

  But during his preparation for the task, terrible news from London blindsided him. Robert Thomson had died after a short illness. Both D. P. and Eric took the news of D. P.’s last brother’s death exceedingly hard. The fleetingness of time and the fragility of life began to plague Eric as he worked through his own myriad emotions.

  What if God had a different path in mind for him?

  What if a seminary degree amounted to no more than words on parchment?

  The season of Advent gave birth to wonderful news. Eric’s coach, Tommy McKerchar, and his wife welcomed a new addition to their family: a son they named Eric Liddell McKerchar. Eric was dumbfounded by the honor, and when asked to be the child’s godfather, he quickly agreed. Despite his demanding workload, when the time came for little Eric’s baptism, the senior Eric had no issues clearing his schedule.

  In January, Eric received a letter from his brother Rob. Rob and Ria had begun a six-month training in medicine and language skills. The letter also stated that Dr. Lavington Hart, the principal of Tientsin Anglo-Chinese College, had arranged for the money Eric would need for his passage to China.

  TACC needed a science teacher, and Eric fit the bill. If Eric could arrive by spring, Hart would be the most ecstatic man on the planet.

  But Eric wasn’t ready to move to China quite yet. As spring arrived, D. P. and Eric continued with their meetings, now focusing on the United Kingdom’s YMCAs. The most remarkable of these meetings, D. P. reported years later, was the one that took place at the London Central YMCA in Tottenham Court Road.

  The men there gathered in the men’s lounge. They sat on sofas and in armchairs, were allowed to smoke, and were encouraged to ask questions. But there was to be no singing of hymns, as D. P. and Eric had grown accustomed. There was to be no reading of Scripture and no call for a decision at the end of the meeting.

  Within five minutes of Monday night’s opening service, as Eric spoke, cigarettes and pipes were extinguished. While the men listened intently, none of them asked questions. By Wednesday evening, no one so much as lit a match.

  “We will finish with an after-meeting in the chapel,” D. P. told those in attendance. Eighty-plus men followed him and Eric out of the lounge that night.

  The Glasgow Herald reported on Eric’s work, saying, “Their leader, Eric Liddell, . . . stands for the Christian youth with a clean breeze about him, and his lungs well filled with the air that blows from the Judean hills. There is not a tincture of conventional piety about any of them; they are interesting and winning.”[30]

  As the weeks passed, Eric’s unique path toward China became more imminent. Despite his rigorous schedule, he continued to find it difficult to refuse the appeals of those who wanted a small bit of him. One such request came with an interesting twist at a Wednesday evening church function. A young Sunday school teacher, Miss Effie Hardie, reached out to him with a request. Since Eric was headed to do missionary work, Effie thought it would be a lovely idea if he became a pen pal to her class so they could learn about life for the Christian missionary. Eric, always wanting to help everyone in every possible way, agreed to consider. His intentions were as noble as Effie’s were optimistic.

  Other than the short games before a few of the meetings he held with D. P., Eric had given up playing rugby. But he was relieved that spring brought one more go-round on the track and field circuit. The physical exertion through sport and competition was a welcome break from his daily pedagogical aerobics. Simply put, running gave his mind a rest.

  He had stayed in strong enough shape for the intense six-week stint. And during his final season, he rarely lost. The public loved him all the more for it.

  But running only intensified the public’s interest in hearing him speak. He addressed a crowd with D. P. Thomson at Edinburgh’s St. George’s United Free Church. Between 1,100 and 1,200 people flocked to listen.

  Eric had always been intrigued by gospel emphasis, but articulating salvation entirely by God’s work was difficult. He consequently engaged his crowd with strong use of instructions and requirements, demonstrating how to live a good Christian life, which was what he was familiar with. It was easy enough to fall back on. Eric found it simpler to explain abstract truths by offering practical steps listeners should take. This method made complete sense to Eric, yet he would soon discover that relying on human effort would be an exhausting way to live a life of faith in Christ.

  Eric’s last meet of the year, and what would be his final race on British soil, took place on June 27, 1925, in the Scottish Amateur Athletic Association, held at Hampden Park in Glasgow with a crowd of over fifteen thousand. Eric walked away with four first-place finishes, in the 100 yards (10.0), 220 yards (22.2), 440 yards (48.9), and one-mile relay—only the fourth person in the history of the meet to do so. It put an emphatic exclamation point on his athletic career and forever marked him in the annals of the sporting world. With that, he headed back to Edinburgh for his last full day in his beloved city.

  Eric could now finally set his face toward China, with his athletic career officially behind him. He believed with all his heart that he’d find his real calling in the mission work in China, in spite of escalating tensions there. For most of those who knew him—and even for those who only thought of themselves as knowing him—the idea of walking away without hesitation after achieving the pinnacle of success was unthinkable. Most could not appreciate the full magnitude of what he was doing. The opportunities at his disposal seemed infinite.

  Yet Eric Liddell wanted only to follow God, his parents, and his other family members back to the mission field. He traded fame and the potential for lucrative opportunities for a life of comparable anonymity.

  The most selfless route is typically the path offering the most peace of mind. Eric knew this truth beyond the shadow of any doubt.

  And as the world was about to see, Eric Liddell lived it.

  But before a final good-bye, Eric gave valedictory meetings in both Glasgow and Edinburgh. More than a thousand people were turned away from seeing Scotland’s greatest athlete one last time.

  June 29, a bleak morning, arrived with much more fanfare than Eric anticipated. First, the Glasgow newspapers ran a poem for his day of departure:

  For China now another race he runs,

  As sure and straight as those Olympic ones,

  And if the ending’s not so simply known—

  We’ll judge he’ll make it, since his speed’s his own.[31]

  A second surprise came when a carriage pulled by friends arrived at his door at 29 Hope Terrace. After loading him in, the team of young students paraded him through his favorite city, through crowds and cheers to Waverley Station. There, he was astounded to see his principal, T. Hywell Hughes, among the throng. Hughes offered a handshake of gratitude as the well-wishers sang “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” and “Will Ye No Come Back Again?”

  Eric stood on the train station pl
atform, surrounded by his fans. When they cheered for him to leave them with some parting words of wisdom, Eric blurted out, “Christ for the world, for the world needs Christ!”[32]

  The words had always been Eric’s credo, and he was proud to be given the chance to rattle off the powerful line one more time. Through singing, tears, and cheers, Eric slowly separated from one home and headed for his other.

  And he prayed. He prayed that the Lord of the nations would unite them all together—one day. He prayed that, in Christ, he would do his part and that others would do theirs.

  The last puff of train engine smoke vanished up and around the bend, as if a divine starter’s pistol had signaled the beginning of a new race. After taking a seat and settling in, Eric recalled a line he had picked up in school: “We must prepare in the days of comfort, for when the days of hardship come, we will be prepared to meet them.”

  Eric Liddell was prepared to meet whatever challenges came.

  Or so he thought.

  [24] D. P. Thomson, Scotland’s Greatest Athlete: The Eric Liddell Story (Barnoak, Crieff, Perthshire, Scotland: Research Unit, 1970), 75.

  [25] Ibid., 74.

  [26] Eric Liddell, The Disciplines of the Christian Life (New York: Ballantine Books, 1985), 61.

  [27] David McCasland, Eric Liddell: Pure Gold: A New Biography of the Olympic Champion Who Inspired Chariots of Fire (Grand Rapids, MI: Discovery House, 2001), 115–16.

  [28] Ibid, 111.

  [29] Ibid.

  [30] D. P. Thomson, Scotland’s Greatest Athlete: The Eric Liddell Story (Barnoak, Crieff, Perthshire, Scotland: Research Unit, 1970), 81–82.