David Brisbin Podcast

By all accounts, Eric Liddel, immortalized in the movie Chariots of Fire, was the embodiment of an old soul. At age 22, he won a gold medal at the 1924 Paris Olympics in the 400m race for Britain, and after over twenty years as a missionary to China, died there at age 43 in a Japanese internment camp at the end of WWII. But the real story lies beneath such events. The movie turns on the contrast between Liddel and his Olympic teammate Harold Abrahams and sister Jenny. Abrahams is obsessed with running, determined to win at any cost as revenge for antisemitic prejudice and proof of his superiority. Jenny is obsessed with religious duty and chastises her brother when he misses a prayer meeting, frivolously training for the Olympics. He tells her: I believe God made me for a purpose—for China. But he also made me fast, and I feel his pleasure when I run. Minutes before the start of his Olympic race, while the other runners are stretching and digging starting blocks, brows furrowed, intent on maintaining focus,