Eric Liddell‭ (‬1902-1945‭): ‬Totally committed to putting God first

Eric Liddell was a Scotsman, an athlete, and the son of missionaries to China, where he was born in 1902. His parents, Rev. and Mrs. James D. Liddell, were career missionaries to China, being sent out under the auspices of the London Missionary Society. Eric attended and graduated from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, in the 1920s, where he excelled in rugby and track. While at the university he won the Scottish championship in the 100 and 220 yard sprints. And in 1924, he was a member of the British Olympic Team that competed in the Paris Olympics. His best event was the 100 yard dash, but because this event ran its preliminary heats on Sunday, and Eric believed that he should not participate on Sunday, he chose not to compete in his best event. He chose, instead to compete in the 400 yard dash for which he had not trained. He competed in the 400 yard dash, finished five yards ahead of his nearest competitors, and set a new world record for the event winning the gold medal. He attributed his win to God. 

Shortly after the Paris Olympics and his graduation from the Edinburgh University in 1925, Eric returned as a missionary to China, following in the footsteps of his parents, and soon met his wife there. Her parents were also missionaries. During his first furlough in 1932, he was ordained to the Christian ministry. Shortly thereafter, he and his family returned to their China mission field and remained there until hostilities between China and Japan intensified in the late 30s as World War II approached. For the safety of his wife and three daughters, he sent4 them back home to Scotland in 1943, but Eric chose to remain at his post in China, serving where he believed God wanted him to be. He was interned by the Japanese in 1943, and served God faithfully in the internment camp until a brain tumor took his life on Feb. 14, 1945, shortly before his camp was liberated. 

While interned by the Japanese, he helped to maintain law and order among the 1,800 internees, helped the older, weak and ill ones in the camp, led worship services, taught children biblical stories, hymns of faith and organized sports and recreation for them. He unreservedly gave of himself to helping others. Years later, one of those children in that camp remembered Eric Liddell with these worlds: “None of us will ever forget this man who was totally committed to putting God first, a man whose humble life combined muscular Christianity with radiant godliness” (David Mitchell). 

In the award winning film, “Chariots of Fire,” these words were on the screen as the film ended: “Eric Liddell, missionary, died in occupied China at the end of World War II. All of Scotland mourned.” A brain tumor had taken his good life.