John Stonestreet – Page 14

Eric Liddell’s Legacy: 100 Years Later

Jul 29, 2024John StonestreetChristianityChristianity

This summer’s Olympic games will mark the 100th anniversary of the incredible performance and shocking faith of Scottish Gold Medalist Eric Liddell, whose story was immortalized in the 1981 movie Chariots of Fire.

A devout Christian and son of Scottish Presbyterian missionaries to China, Liddell was an athlete of tremendous promise from his youth. In addition to running, Liddell was selected to play for Scotland’s international rugby team seven times. Alongside his rigorous athletic training was his rigorous faith. In particular, Liddell had a practice of resting on the Sabbath, which meant never racing on Sundays.

Liddell’s athletic prowess eventually took him to the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris, France. That year, when the schedule of events was released, Liddell’s best race—the 100-meter dash—was scheduled for a Sunday. But because the race was scheduled on the Sabbath, Liddell dropped out.

As one of his peers recalled, Liddell’s decision “caused tremendous furore amongst many people, particularly with the newspapers and journalists,” with some even calling him “a traitor to his country.”

Nevertheless, the Scottish runner refused to race on Sunday, and instead ran in the 200-meter and 400-meter events, races not scheduled on a Sunday and for which he had not trained. Incredibly, he took bronze in the 200-meter and gold in the 400-meter, finishing five meters ahead of the pack.

Liddell saw his performance as an act of his faith in Christ. In his own words: “When the gun goes, I go as fast as I can, and I trust to God that I’ll have the strength to do the second half.” Liddell’s performance showed that excellence in one’s craft can be a witness for Christ, and his decision to change races bore witness to the fact that neither international fame nor Olympic gold were worth denying the Lord. In fact, his choice pointed to a treasure more precious than Olympic gold, the immeasurable riches of eternal life in Jesus Christ.

Liddell’s witness and renown did not end at the 1924 Olympics. As Liddell once said, God had not only “made [him] fast;” He “made [him] for China.” Following athletic success, Liddell returned to China as a missionary. There he bore witness to Christ by preaching the Gospel and teaching at a college. When Japan invaded China in 1937, Liddell decided to remain in the country while his pregnant wife and two children evacuated. In time, the Japanese placed him in an internment camp, where he faithfully served Christ and others before dying of a brain tumor in 1945.  

A century later, Liddell’s witness and legacy finds new traction with today’s Olympians.

Other devout athletes describe faith as strengthening their performance rather than undermining it. In 2020, Beatie Deutsch, an Orthodox Jewish runner, opted not to compete in the women’s marathon at Tokyo Olympics because it was scheduled on Saturday. As she described it: “Most people would see sports and religion as very separate, but I see a big overlap. Everything we have is a gift from God—He’s the one who’s given me this strength.”

American gold medalist in women’s 400-meter hurdles Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone found direct inspiration from Liddell’s historic decision to glorify God. In a space where it would be so easy to cave to the pressures of performance, McLaughlin-Levrone’s faith liberates her from doubt and fear:

For a long time, my identity was in track and field. But I realized that first and foremost, I’m a child of God. It set me free to run the race God has set out for me to run.

Liddell’s courage to honor the Lord has left a lasting impact. May his life and legacy continue to inspire new generations of Christians to courageously live out their faith even when it’s costly.

This Breakpoint was co-authored by Jared Hayden. If you’re a fan of Breakpoint, leave a review on your favorite podcast app. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.

Cannabis Linked to Depression and Bipolar Disorder: Guest Column

Jul 22, 2024John StonestreetMarijuanaMarijuana

Despite cultural propaganda that sells marijuana as “harmless,” research increasingly finds that regular cannabis use is just the opposite. Not only have recent studies found that marijuana use is a leading indicator of workplace accidents and leads to schizophrenia among young men, but a new, peer-reviewed study tracking almost 30 years of medical records for over 6.5 million Danish citizens has found that marijuana use is closely associated with increased risks for depression and bipolar disorder.

Those previously diagnosed with cannabis addiction were almost twice as likely to develop clinical depression and up to four times as likely to be diagnosed with bipolar disorder. The increased risk for psychosis is more likely for men than for women, and the chances go up with use.

As U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse Deputy Director Dr. Wilson Compton noted, studies like these are rapidly exposing that “cannabis may not be the innocent and risk-free substance that so many people believe.”

This Point was previously published on July 28, 2023.

The Attempted Assassination of a President: Guest Column

Jul 17, 2024John StonestreetCurrent EventsCurrent Events, Trump

Saturday marked the end of the longest span between domestic assassination attempts of U.S. presidents and presidential candidates since President Lincoln was killed at Ford’s Theatre in 1865. President Garfield was killed in 1881; Mckinley in 1901. Attempts were made at Theodore Roosevelt in 1912, Franklin Roosevelt in 1933, and Truman in 1950. President JFK was killed in 1963 and candidate RFK in 1968. Candidate George Wallace was shot and survived in 1972, and two attempts were made at President Ford in 1975. The most recent domestic assassination attempt prior to Saturday was over forty years ago, when Ronald Reagan was shot and survived, and afterward quipped to his wife Nancy, “Honey, I forgot to duck.”

While the frequency of this violent history may be surprising, it does not diminish the horrific and evil nature of Saturday’s shooting nor the tremendous loss experienced by the family of Corey Comperatore. According to the New York Times, Comperatore died when he “threw himself over his family members to shield them.”

A former fire chief, Comperatore was also, according to his daughter,

[T]he best dad a girl could ever ask for. My sister and I never needed for anything. You call, he would answer. … [H]e could talk and make friends with anyone, which he was doing all day (at the rally) and loved every minute of it. He was a man of God, loved Jesus fiercely, and also looked after our church and our members as family.

Questions abound about this attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, from the motivations of the shooter to the seemingly unfathomable reality that the 20-year-old was able to reach an elevated position with direct line-of-sight only 130 yards or so from the President. There’s also the many “what might have been” questions, about the President personally and about the nation, questions that have only shudder-inducing speculative answers. And there are the worldview questions that arise in historic moments like this, about the reality of God and the role of divine providence in national and international affairs; and about the human condition, especially the frailty of life and the moral significance of our actions.

As Dr. Al Mohler helpfully articulated in The Briefing, “[L]ife and death can come down to the matter of seconds and to a matter of a millimeter.” The former president seems to also recognize that his survival was due to that level of precision, acknowledging to the New York Post, “I’m not supposed to be here. … By luck or by God, many people are saying it’s by God I’m still here.”

That it is by God and not luck, Christians know for sure (and it seems, so does the President). At the same time, this clear teaching of Scripture, that God oversees the affairs of men particularly in raising up and casting down those in power, is not easy to understand. Why would God spare the President’s life but not Mr. Comperatore? By all indications, Mr. Trump turned his head to a chart on a screen and was somehow saved. Mr. Comperatore made the decision to throw himself between his family and an assassin, and it cost him his life. How does that make any sense?

“Here,” Mohler continued, “Christians understand we have nowhere to go but the Doctrine of Providence. … It is essential to our Christian understanding of the world.” God’s providence extends to every moment of human history, not just the seemingly exceptional ones. The world is never outside of His control, even when the outcome is not as we hoped. Put differently, the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 was providential for both England and Spain. The fog that enabled the Dunkirk rescue was providential for the British, the Germans, and the entire world.

And yet, just as essential to the Christian understanding of the world is the moral capacity of human beings and the meaningfulness of human actions. A Hindu leader once noted to theologian and missionary Lesslie Newbigin,

I find in your Bible a unique interpretation of universal history, the history of the whole of creation and the history of the human race. And therefore, a unique interpretation of the human person as a responsible actor in history. That is unique. There is nothing else in the whole religious literature of the world to put alongside it.

There is no conflict between God’s sovereignty and man’s moral responsibility. In fact, the alternatives would be far worse. If no sovereign God exists, then life and all that happens is random and meaningless, except for some preferred interpretation we choose to impose on it. If all is predetermined, either by “nature” or by some heartless deity, we have no cause to expect better behavior of ourselves or others. The meaningfulness of our actions and the constant presence and oversight of our loving Creator may be difficult to reconcile, but it is a far better scenario.

Thus we can say, both truthfully and meaningfully, that God graciously spared the former president, that the shooter’s actions were evil and heinous, and that Mr. Comperatore was heroic to protect his family. We can also, truthfully and meaningfully, judge the words and the actions of ourselves, our leaders, and our press in response to this tragedy. We can act so that, by God’s grace, this kind of thing will not become normal. We can pray that, having lived through this attempt on his life, President Trump is brought to a place of gratitude to God and a sense of responsibility, rather than to a sense of entitlement. At the same time, we should pray that God’s grace and mercy covers the Comperatore family and that He will use His church to do so.

We should know also that our moral actions matter as well, as citizens and voters who follow Christ. How God’s people respond to this telling and troubling political moment will either point this world to Christ or not. So, here’s a prayer for us all:

O Lord, we beseech thee mercifully to receive the prayers of thy people who call upon thee, and grant that they may both perceive and know what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to fulfill the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

If you’re a fan of Breakpoint, leave a review on your favorite podcast app. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.