I want to tell you a story about Glory but what if I told you the story begins with Olympic victory in Paris and ends with missionary death in China does that sound like Glory well it depends on where the road leads but before we hit the road we need to glance in the rearview mirror that'll help us map out where we're headed and what we see might surprise us the Olympics are really [Music] religious the Olympic Games began in ancient Greece in 776 BC every four years the Greeks staged epic athletic contests there was the
pancre an event sort of like martial arts but with hardly any restrictions you couldn't bite or gouge but almost any anything else was fair game including strangle holds and breaking fingers there were chariot races the most popular and most dangerous event of the games in a custombuilt stadium called a hippodrome each driver steered the Reigns of four horses galloping at full speed each horse with the strength of 10 men in the middle of all this blood and sweat and sometimes death there was also a whole lot lot of religion during Opening Ceremonies competitors marched to
an ancient temple in Olympia priests offered sacrifices of pigs and sheep to a massive statue of Zeus athletes pledged their allegiance to the Greek gods the games went on for centuries but they fizzled around 393 ad that's when the Roman Emperor theodosius embraced Christian teaching and Bann Pagan rituals including the kind associated with the Olympic Games it would be500 years before the games resurfaced my name is Jamie Dean I'm lead writer for radical and I want to invite you on a journey think of it as a road trip to the Olympics and Beyond and here's
where we're headed this Summer Olympic athletes will compete compete on the same field in Paris that a Christian athlete named Eric little made famous during the 1924 Olympic Games the Scotsman won a remarkable Olympic race and then he laid down a running career to take up a gospel calling that ended with his death in China a century later we can still learn from Eric little and we can also learn what what's happening today with the gospel he loved in the countries he knew best how did Scotland a nation of churches become a nation of the
unchurched how did France the country that's home to the Cathedral of notredam become an epicenter for secularism and a magnet for Islam and how has China a nation with an officially atheistic government become a place where the gospel spreads even under persecution we'll ask Christians in those places those questions and we'll see that gospel Glory sometimes looks more like losing than winning at least at first because God is at work in some of the places and some of the people we might least expect and sometimes people might be easier to reach than we think especially
if we're willing to reach out from the team at radical this is Glory Road the nations are as a drop in the bucket All Nations before him are as nothing they are counted to him less than nothing vanity Hast th not known Hast th not heard that the Everlasting God the Lord the creator of the ends of the Earth sath not so500 years later the Olympic Games resurfaced this time the organizer was French and the games were a lot Tamer but there was still a kind of religion except instead of ancient paganism now the religion
was Modern humanism the French organizer said that the first essential characteristic of the Olympics is to be a religion he said it represents above and outside the church Humanity's Superior religion he crystallized the idea in the Olympic motto faster higher stronger and no doubt we have seen some seriously fast and seriously strong Olympic [Applause] athletes facing the greatest swimmer of all time Michael Phelps and he's holding for going to match the most ever in history of this sport 220 kilos Lalah third attempt athletes like Usain Bolt the Jamaican considered the greatest Sprinter of all time
there's the Georgian weightlifter Lasha tazi a gold medalist who's lifted 589 lbs over his head and then there's Michael Phelps the American swimmer with a 6ot 7in wingspan and the title of most decorated Olympian in modern history with 28 medals 23 of those are gold it is an amazing thing to behold but if the Olympics aspired to showcase the glory of man they couldn't hide with the same games often revealed man's deep tragic fallenness old film footage from the 19 36 Olympics in Berlin shows athletes from around the world marching in an oval Stadium packed
with more than 100,000 people Grecian sight of the first Olympiad nearly 3,000 years ago you see the crowds and some of the athletes smiling and saluting the game's proud host the official procession headed by Germany's number one host Chancellor Hitler who pauses to accept a floral tribute amid the reverberating Roar of a crowd World War II was still 3 years away and the Nazi party wanted to project an image of a tolerant peaceful Germany they temporarily removed anti-jewish signs from public places and they toned down anti-semitic rhetoric in German newspapers not everyone bought it but
the propaganda work for some the New York Times declared Olympics leave glow of pride in the Reich 3 years later Hitler invaded Poland world War II began and an estimated 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust the Olympics shut down in 1940 and 1944 as World War II took tens of millions of lives [Music] the world tried to pick itself up after the war and so did the Olympics the games resumed in London in 1948 by 1972 Germany got its first chance to host the Olympics again this time the host was Munich and the hopes
were high but during the second week tragedy struck again good afternoon I'm Jim McKay speaking to you live at this moment from ABC headquarters just outside the Olympic Village in Munich West Germany the piece of what has would have been called the Serene Olympics was shattered Just Before Dawn this morning about 5:00 when Arab terrorists armed with submachine guns faces blackened a couple of them disguised as guards or as uh trash men in the Olympic Village climbed the fence went to the headquarters of the Israeli team and immediately killed one man historians call it the
Munich massacre in the early morning hours of September 5th 1972 eight members of a Palestinian terror group called Black September scaled the fence into the Olympic Village they invaded the apartment of the Israeli Olympic team and killed two members they took nine other Israelis hostage millions of people stayed glued to their televisions watching a masked terrorist pacing around the Israelis balcony nearly 20 hours later during a failed rescue attempt the militants killed the remaining nine Israelis an American sports caster reported the horrible News Nine were killed at the airport tonight they're all gone over the
decade the pattern repeated Olympic athletes achieved astounding feat and the real world interrupted in 1980 the US and 64 other nations boycotted the Summer Olympics in Moscow to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1984 the Soviet Union boycotted the Olympics in Los Angeles does it all sound a little familiar International turmoil involving Palestinians and Israelis and Americans and Russians the author of Eccles eastes was right there is nothing new Under The Sun It's still thrilling to watch Olympic athletes do amazing things but any notion of the Olympics displaying human Glory as an Ultimate Reality
doesn't hold up under the weight of human history or what the Bible teaches about the human heart we need a champion far greater than ourselves Eric little understood [Music] this you may recognize that theme music even if you haven't seen the 1981 film Chariots of Fire if you have seen the movie you know it tells the true story of a Christian Scotsman named Eric little and his victory in the Paris Olympics of 19 19 24 this movie was a big deal and it wasn't just Christians who loved it it won the Oscar for best picture
and three other categories in 1982 one of The film's Producers was Dodie fed an Egyptian Muslim but what was it that so many people found so compelling I think it was this Eric little stuck to his convictions for the sake of something higher than himself when it was really unpopular and really costly Eric little didn't blink we'll hear more about his story in future episodes but here are the basics little was born to missionary parents in China he grew up in a boarding school in London and attended University in his parents home country of Scotland
he loved rugby and later he loved running he also loved the Lord but little didn't see those loves as mutually exclusive he just knew which one was most important he saw his talent as a gift to be enjoyed to the glory of the God who gave it to him in a pivotal scene in Chariots of Fire little tells his sister God made me fast and when I run I feel his pleasure now all of this might have gone unnoticed if it wasn't for two things number one little was really fast and number two he wouldn't
run on Sundays he believed the Lord's day was set apart for worship and rest his conscience wouldn't allow him to run an organized race on a Sunday that simple conviction hit a complicated hurdle when the schedule for the Olympic Heats was published the heat for the event little might actually win was slated in Paris on a Sunday and despite a lot of pressure little wouldn't run it now it's not too much of a spoiler to tell you the movie has a happy ending little ran A different race a race he wasn't expected to win and
he blew away the competition on his return to Scotland friends carried him on their shoulders through the streets of Edinburgh while crowds cheered little kept his convictions and he won Olympic Glory but there's a lot more to the story in the very last frame of the movie A two- sentence postcript tells what happened after the Olympics it says Eric little missionary died in occupied China at the end of World War II all of Scotland mourned those two sentences describe what was actually the most inspiring and most important part of Little's whole life see Little's greatest
Glory wasn't winning a gold medal in Paris but losing his own life for the glory of God in China at a moment when he could have kept running for the sake of Fame little chose A different race again this one for the sake of the gospel and the joy of the Nations what happened to little in China is a story you'll want to hear but so is the story of what's happening with the go gopel in China today and in France where little ran and in Scotland where he grew up we'll start there in the
winding streets of Edinburgh Scotland where little trained and learned and worshiped and we'll get right to a question that might surprise little if he were around today how did Scotland a land of beautiful churches and brave reformers become a country where the majority of its population claim no religion at all a country where so few really profess Christ some consider it statistically on par with an unreached people group and if that's true who is being reached the answer to that question might also surprise little and us too that's next time on Glory Road [Music] Glory
Road is a production of radical written and hosted by Jamie Dean editing by hyro namon Direction and editing by Josh Diaz sound design and original scores by Rob errera artwork by Raul anel project management by karolina oin Steven Morales is senior director of content learn more at radical.net [Music]
