With the approaching of the 33rd Summer Olympics in Paris on July 26, many people especially Christians are remembering Eric Liddell (1902-1945). Powerfully depicted in the 1981 Academy Award-winning film Chariots of Fire as the “Flying Scotsman”, Liddell demonstrated to the world a strong Christian conviction. Appreciated or criticised, he refused to run any race on any Sunday, even at the cost of gold medals. However, his missionary work in war-torn China from 1925 to 1945 is less known, and even less known is his Christ-like living in the Japanese concentration camp in China.
Image from http://www.patrickcomerford.com/2013/02/with-saints-in-lent-10-eric-henry.html.
A Missionary Child Born in China
Eric Liddell was born in Tianjin, China in 1902. His parents were missionaries from the London Missionary Society (LMS), so he had a Chinese name called 李愛銳 (Li Airui) or 李達 (Li Da). The early 1900s were tumultuous times in China, as the Qing dynasty (1644-1912) was falling apart. Just before Liddell was born, the Boxer Rebellion swept across the land in 1899 and 1900, aiming to expel Westerners and kill Chinese Christians. Nearly 200 Protestant missionaries including over 50 children and thousands of Chinese Christians were slaughtered.
In 1907, Eric and his 9-year-old brother Robert were sent back to Scotland for education. As with many other missionary children, Eric grew up without the care of his parents who were serving God in China. Coincidentally, 1907 marked the centennial anniversary of the arrival of the first Protestant to China. Within those 100 years, there were about 100,000 Christians in China. The harvest was plenty, and God’s labourers remained. Eric graduated from the University of Edinburg with a bachelor’s degree of science in 1924. By that time, he had already shown great talents in rugby and running.
According to James Hudson Taylor III, although born to a devout Christian family, Liddell did not determine to serve the Lord until reaching the age of 21. It was then that he encountered God himself while he was speaking to the Scottish miners. Jesus became his personal Saviour.
Portrait of Eric Liddell in 1925. By Eileen Soper.
From https://www.weihsien-paintings.org/NormanCliff/people/individuals/Eric01/p_painting.htm
The Olympic Champion Who Refused to Race on the Sabbath
Eric Liddell grew up with the strong conviction that the Sabbath (Sunday) was the day set aside by God for rest. He did not struggle whether he should or should not race on Sundays, but simply obeyed. However, many people called him unpatriotic. In the movie Chariots of Fire, even Prince of Wales tried to convince him that he should prioritise his country over his faith. Obviously, the Prince was not successful. People are “stubborn” in their own ways, but Liddell was faithfully obeying God’s fourth commandment which says: ‘Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy…Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy’ (Exodus 20:8-11). Interestingly, the French Revolution in the 1790s had declared war on Sunday observance. In the end, Liddell was to win the 400 metres event in record time.
Liddell’s unusual and unpopular decision derived from his conviction that he was running for God and not for men or himself. He viewed his talent as God-given, famously saying, ‘God made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure’. He also compared the Olympic gold medal with God’s ultimate reward and said:
It has been a wonderful experience to compete in the Olympic Games and to bring home a gold medal. But since I have been a young lad, I have had my eyes on a different prize. You see, each one of us is in a greater race than any I have run in Paris, and this race ends when God gives out the medals.
Chariots of Fireends with these brief words: “Eric Liddell, missionary, died in occupied China at the end of World War II. All of Scotland mourned.” It was just an abbreviation of Eric’s life after 1924. In fact, his race for the Lord would take him to China in 1925, and he kept running till his death in 1945.
Missionary Work in China
China in the 1920s saw the rapid rise of nationalism and communism. In 1919, Chen Duxiu (1879-1942), one of the leading intellectuals, urged the progressive Chinese youth to know “two gentlemen”, namely, Mr. Democracy and Mr. Science. As the founder of the Chinese Communist Party in 1921, Chen upheld Marxist principles. As a contrast, Eric Liddell represented the educational wing of Christian mission in China, which was dedicated to bringing up a new generation who would master science and understand democracy with adherence to Christian principles.
Liddell applied for a teaching post in the Anglican-Chinese College in Tianjin. Christian schools were having a difficult time due to the prevailing anti-Christian movement. Besides, it was an elite school for children from wealthy and powerful families. The trial period for a teacher was as long as 4 years! After strict examinations, placement in rural places and a year-long training in the Chinese language, Liddell was finally able to teach science and sports at that school. He also ran a Sunday school for the church, and even helped to design the sports stadium in the city of Tianjin.
The Sino-Japanese War started in 1937, and Eric went to assist his brother Robert, who served as medical missionary in a poor rural mission station nearby. He often had to travel back to the city of Tianjin to his family, taking great risks. With Japan’s accelerated invasion and seizing of many territories in northern China, the UK government advised all British nationals to leave China in 1941. Eric decided to send his wife Florence, who was then pregnant, and two young daughters to Canada. He stayed faithful to God’s work in China and never saw them again.
Liddell continued his educational and medical mission work in China. After Japan attacked Pearl Harbour in 1941 and dragged America into the war, Allied nationals became Japan’s “enemy nationals”. In 1943, Liddell was detained in the civilian internment camp in Weihsien (now Weifang, Shandong Province) where he was imprisoned for 2 years until his death.
Eric Liddell in rural mission station, late 1930s or early 1940s. Image from https://bpc.org.au/eric-liddell/.
“Uncle Eric” in the Concentration Camp
The civilian internment camp, euphemistically speaking, was on a former American Presbyterian mission compound which had been looted bare by the Japanese. 1,800 people lived there, including Japanese guards, between November 1943 and August 1945. It is there that Liddell ran his final race, dying in February 1945.
Many former internees dearly remembered him because his Christ-like living had greatly influenced the trajectory of their life. Christian scholar Norman Cliff (1925-2007) recalled that Eric was an “ubiquitous” existence in the camp. Designated by the camp Labour Committee, Liddell’s time was divided between teaching and organising athletic games. There being no blackboards, classrooms or equipment, children sat in bed listening to their teacher, and took notes. Eric composed a 100-page chemistry textbook, and students learned this subject in their imagination!
Joyce Stranks (1927-2018) later became a missionary to Taiwan with her husband. She recollected that Eric was also writing a manual on Christian discipleship. The manual was later published as Disciplines of the Christian Life, providing the youth with a practical guide for their spiritual growth. Liddell was also on the Weihsien Christian Fellowship Committee, responsible for evangelical worship services.
Mary Previte (1932-2019), the great granddaughter of James Hudson Taylor, was among the 300 missionary children transferred from the Chefoo Boarding School of China Inland Mission (CIM). These children were distinctively called “Chefoo Scholars”. Mary called Eric “Jesus in running shoes”, while most of the children called him “Uncle Eric”. Having not seen their parents for years due to critical situations during the war, these children and other youngsters on the camp studied and played with Eric.
“Uncle Eric” was not only a fun person but a teacher who impacted many young lives. One story, albeit not confirmed by all, was significant. Margaret Holder remembered that Eric refereed children when they played basketball, rounders, and hockey on Sunday afternoons. Well-known for his Christian principlea, Eric was willing to change for the benefit of the children. The reason was simple: children would fight on the playground when Eric was absent on Sundays. This story reminded me of Jesus’s response to Pharisees who accused Him of healing a man on the Sabbath. Jesus confronted them with a question: “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” (Mark 3:4) When Eric insisted on not racing on Sundays even under the pressure from nation-wide criticisms, including from the royal family, he was sticking to biblical truth at the cost of his own success. Yet for the good of others, in this case, desperate kids living in the concentration camp, he surrendered. He was not legalistic despite what some fellow Christians said.
The life of Stephen A. Metcalf (1927-2014) was changed, seeing how Eric lived out the Sermon of the Mount. It was not surprising that the internees resented the Japanese guards who detained them and forced them to labour. Many recalled that Eric’s most memorable teachings were the Sermon on the Mount and Paul’s hymn of Love in 1 Corinthians 13. Stephen remembered how Eric challenged them with Matthew 5:43, asking them whether they should really love the Japanese guards. Eric’s question was whether it was just an ideal to aim at or a practical reality to love enemies. The discussion tended towards the ideal, for God taught his disciples to “be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). However, Eric mentioned another verse, “pray for them that persecute you” (Matthew 5:44), saying, “we spend a lot of time praying for all our loved ones and the people we like but Jesus told us to pray for the people we don’t like.” He encouraged them to start praying for the Japanese with God’s love.
Stephen worked in Australia after WWII. One day in 1948 he heard a rebroadcast of General Douglas McArthur’s appeal for missionaries to go to Japan. It sounded like God’s calling to him, and he had prayed for some years. After finishing theological training in Melbourne, Stephen left for Japan, established family and spent decades there. Noting the influence of Liddell, he wrote:
I have his missionary baton of forgiveness and the torch of the gospel, which with the Sermon on the Mount that has been shared with thousands of Japanese.
The Legacy of Eric Liddell
Eric died on February 21, 1945, only 6 months before the liberation of this camp. In serious sickness, he requested some internees play Finlandia for him:
Be still, my soul. The Lord is on thy side;
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change He faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul – thy best, thy heavenly Friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.
One week later, Eric’s last word in his death bed was “surrender”. What a vivid description of his faithful life in Christ!
Today in the city of Weifang where the concentration camp was once located, there stands a monument with the red granite brought from Scotland. On the back inscribed were these verses–
They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary (Isaiah 40:31).
Monument erected in Weifang, Shandong, China Image from https://wellsofgrace.com/biography/biography/liddell/liddell.htm.
Eric Liddell, the chariot of fire, never ceased running after the Paris Summer Olympic Games in 1924. He kept running for the Lord to the end of his life on earth in 1945. He did not choose to live in the aura, but he led such a life that allowed us to see beautiful rays of the light of Gospel prevailing in the darkness of this world, even in an internment camp. His life is more than a story ofan outstanding athlete, but one of an obedient and sacrificial servant of God. As some biographers noted, his life was “a complete surrender”.
Thank God for Eric Liddell. Praise be to our Lord, Jesus Christ.
– Sonia Liang
Posted on 1 day ago By Sonia LiangPosted in Uncategorised Tagged #Christian Life
