Scotland's Eric Liddell refused to run in an Olympic race on a Sunday and it cost him a gold medal.
New York City's Rich Swingle did a lot of running at Bethel EM Church last Sunday evening and it won him many hearts.
Liddell's stand at the 1924 Paris Olympics is, after 90 years, not the freshest morsel on the morality buffet; Swingle's one-man, high-energy, hour-long play not only retells the Liddell story, but as he puts it, "serves as a reminder that the arts can be used to get out the message of the gospel."
Swingle and wife Joyce have staged their "Beyond the Chariots" and other dramas in hundreds of venues on five continents. The fast-paced, often loud, and minimal-props presentation shows Liddell's life as a missionary, world-class runner, and Second World War prisoner of the Japanese in China. "Chariots" refers to the 1981 British movie, "Chariots of Fire" that portrayed Liddell's personal and spiritual life and his Olympic-size ethics struggle.
Unaffiliated with any organization, the Swingles are free to do their dramas—at last count in 27 nations with hundreds of performances, speaking, or teaching engagements a year—or be involved with other biblically relevant projects, such as the Greg and Dallas Lammiman futuristic movie, some of which was shot in Three Hills last week.
