When Charles Dickens penned those immortal lines, “It was the best of times., it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,…” he had Paris in mind. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/A_Tale_of_Two_Cities After the French Revolution, the Jacobin Reign of Terror and the Paris Commune, not to mention several disastrously unsuccessful wars, the French historical record is just a tad mixed. And so it was again last weekend when Paris was all decked out in its best Olympic finery to create the perfect multi-media spectacle, too grand even for a determined rain to diminish. Predictably, defeat was again snatched from the jaws of victory as French philosophes re-imagined The Last Supper as a drag-queen tableau underlining the high-minded inclusivity of the organizers.

While Jill Biden applauded until her hands hurt, the rest of Christendom was not impressed. Bishop Robert Barron of Rochester promptly condemned the display’s crude mockery of central Christian beliefs. “How could Christians not interpret this as anything but a slap? …Their inclusivity excluded Christians…What will happen to our culture when these beliefs are mocked out of existence?” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R – LA) posted on X: "Last night’s mockery of the Last Supper was shocking and insulting to Christian people around the world who watched the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games…The war on our faith and traditional values knows no bounds today. But we know that truth and virtue will always prevail.” https://www.foxnews.com/politics/first-lady-jill-biden-praises-olympics-opening-ceremony-mocked-last-supper

Adding insult to injury, the most upsetting part of the whole debacle came when its organizers defended their actions by claiming they had not intended to hurt or demean “any religious group” by their cultural wargasm. Nonsense: Only a day later, the formerly covert agenda was on full display. “The opening ceremony did ruffle some feathers… and I LOVE it,” drag queen Nicky Doll wrote on Instagram. “You know why? Because the Olympics are the biggest stage in the world” And remember, he concluded, “WE AIN’T GOING NOWHERE.” https://www.toddstarnes.com/video/olympic-drag-queen-warns-christians-we-aint-going-nowhere/

With so much energy devoted to spiritual warfare and media buzz, few seemed to recall an earlier Olympics, also in Paris but a century earlier during the war-chastened year of 1924. Those dramatic events formed the backdrop for my all-time favorite movie, Chariots of Fire, focusing on the challenges facing the British Olympic team. During my junior year abroad at the University of Edinburgh, I first became acquainted with the extraordinary story of Eric Liddell He won the gold medal in the 400-yard dash, one of two golds the British team won that year. The other, in the 100-yard dash, was won by Liddell’s team-mate and close rival, Harold Abrams. Their competition was based not only on their running skills but also colored by their respective religions. Abrams was Jewish – and had faced antisemitism in the highly structured British class system. For

 Abrams, athletic mastery was his means of defeating discrimination, simply by proving himself better.

Eric Liddell, however, was not only the son of Scottish missionaries but was also a devout Christian whose post-Olympic career would return him to the Chinese mission fields where he had been born. Far from self-promotion, Liddell considered running to be part of his duty to his Creator. “God made me for a purpose but he also made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure.” In our profoundly cynical age, such words would likely be dismissed as empty rhetoric. However, what made Liddell a real hero was the strength of his convictions, particularly his decision to forego competing in the 100-meter dash because its heats were run on Sunday – off-limits for a Christian missionary for whom Sunday was strictly the Lord’s Day. The dramatic thrust of the movie shows Eric Liddell’s vindication not only as a man of God but one for whom athletic prowess was an act of worship.

Edinburgh University still honors his memory and makes a point of telling visitors that his greatest race was not the 400-meter dash but being a missionary in China until the Japanese imprisoned him as a POW in 1943. Even in those dire circumstances Eric Liddell lived his faith in a way that makes his legacy something that Chinese authorities still treasure. But my favorite scene in Chariots is the one where he reads a chapter from Isaiah that today’s Olympians might well ponder:

But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength.

They will soar high on wings like eagles

They will run and not grow weary.

They will walk and not faint.

(Isaiah 40:31)

COL Kenneth Allard is a former West Point professor, Dean of the National War College and NBC News military analyst.