Are you living up to the standards of Jesus Christ? We are looking for men and women who are willing to answer the challenge Christ is sending out. If this audience was out and out for Christ, the whole of Edinburgh would be changed. If the whole of this audience was out for Christ, it would go far past Edinburgh and through all Scotland. The last time Edinburgh was swept, all Scotland was flooded.
Then he would pause for effect. “What are you going to do tonight?”[27]
Eric and D. P.’s dynamic evangelism teamwork bore much fruit, but they were not without critics who questioned their tactics of playing on the emotions of the crowd. But thanks to his pre-Olympics experiences, critics were not new to Eric.
Leaving the critics to question him was fine . . . as long as he was okay in God’s eyes.
As had been his habit for most of his life, Eric continued corresponding with his parents. When he shared both the positive and the negative press he and D. P. had received, his father wrote to the London Missionary Society secretary expressing his feelings and offering some perspective on the situation:
It is certainly very gratifying that Eric has so fully entered into this spiritual experience, and is desirous of passing on what is his possession, that others might also enjoy the same. My wife and I are perfectly sure he has the illumination that will be as an anchor for life if he keeps in touch with Jesus Christ. We are very glad the team is not stressing theology as such, but getting the young life to face their personal relation to the Saviour. . . . From what we know of Eric we are sure he will not seek to harrow any one’s feelings, or seek to publicly uncover what any one wishes to be kept sacred. But I guess he’ll want very honest dealing as between individuals and their Lord. We could never dream of connecting Eric with sensational methods. Our hope is that the churches will be helped, and many young people make the great decision.[28]
Eric’s speaking engagements with D. P. drew such crowds, and were so frequent, they hampered Eric’s studies during that school year. Eric counterbalanced working through his own theological perspectives via reading, studies, lectures, chapels, sermons, and worship with subtly applying these perspectives in his own evangelism efforts.
But a new problem arose.
Eric had become involved with the Oxford Group—a term coined for Rev. Frank Buchman’s theological and lunchtime gatherings of Christian men. Buchman was a mission-minded Lutheran minister from the United States. The Oxford Group subscribed to a number of Christian principles Eric already believed in, but they also afforded him the opportunity to consider new thoughts and principles that Eric then embraced, embodied, and would later reflect as bedrock disciplines of the Christian. Eric’s old ideology contrasted with some of the principles he picked up from the Oxford Group.
Saying yes to every request felt easiest but only proved to be exhausting. Every man has his breaking point, even one described as being “pure gold through and through.” Eric lamented his struggles to his parents, which prompted his concerned father to write again to the LMS: “We hear that Eric is having strenuous times between work and meetings. We hope he will not undertake too much while still doing study. He is one who finds it difficult to refuse work.”[29]
Studying, speaking, training, racing, traveling, and keeping up with correspondence and endless requests pulled Eric in too many directions. Something had to give.
Soon.
The resident pastor at Morningside Congregational Church, Rev. Moffatt Scott, had always been supportive of Eric’s ministry and active Sunday school leadership. He offered Eric the opportunity to preach to the youth a few evenings a week from the pulpit. Despite the nearly crushing schedule he lived under, this was a wonderful chance for Eric to partner with his closest support system and to serve the immediate community that had ministered so much to him.
Eric could not refuse.
But during his preparation for the task, terrible news from London blindsided him. Robert Thomson had died after a short illness. Both D. P. and Eric took the news of D. P.’s last brother’s death exceedingly hard. The fleetingness of time and the fragility of life began to plague Eric as he worked through his own myriad emotions.
What if God had a different path in mind for him?
What if a seminary degree amounted to no more than words on parchment?
The season of Advent gave birth to wonderful news. Eric’s coach, Tommy McKerchar, and his wife welcomed a new addition to their family: a son they named Eric Liddell McKerchar. Eric was dumbfounded by the honor, and when asked to be the child’s godfather, he quickly agreed. Despite his demanding workload, when the time came for little Eric’s baptism, the senior Eric had no issues clearing his schedule.
In January, Eric received a letter from his brother Rob. Rob and Ria had begun a six-month training in medicine and language skills. The letter also stated that Dr. Lavington Hart, the principal of Tientsin Anglo-Chinese College, had arranged for the money Eric would need for his passage to China.
TACC needed a science teacher, and Eric fit the bill. If Eric could arrive by spring, Hart would be the most ecstatic man on the planet.
But Eric wasn’t ready to move to China quite yet. As spring arrived, D. P. and Eric continued with their meetings, now focusing on the United Kingdom’s YMCAs. The most remarkable of these meetings, D. P. reported years later, was the one that took place at the London Central YMCA in Tottenham Court Road.
The men there gathered in the men’s lounge. They sat on sofas and in armchairs, were allowed
