Charlie Chaplin Fan

D.G. Hart, Defending the Faith: J. Gresham Machen and the Crisis of Conservative Protestantism in Modern America, pp. 164, 207:

The final issue that split fundamentalist and traditionalist Presbyterians concerned personal morality. In [James Oliver] Buswell's estimation this was the proverbial straw that would break the camel's back. Those in the church who sided with him, Buswell wrote (in what turned out to be his last letter to Machen), were concerned about reports that Westminster students used liquor in their rooms "with the approval of some members of the faculty." The use of alcohol, even in the celebration of the sacrament, he added, was "far more likely" to divide the church than "any question of eschatology." Buswell and other fundamentalists in the church were also "shocked" by leaders of the new denomination who defended "the products of Hollywood," a "useless,...waste of energy." Machen never responded to Buswell but his opposition to Prohibition provides a clue to his views on alcohol. In addition to opposing the expanded powers of the federal government that the Eighteenth Amendment granted, Machen also thought the Bible allowed moderate use of alcohol. This was also the position of the majority of faculty at Westminster who came from ethnic churches were the idea of total abstinence with American evangelicalism was foreign. As for Buswell's reference to Hollywood, Machen did enjoy going to the movies and commented favorably on Charlie Chaplin but did not make any remarks about film in his published writings.10

10. Buswell to Machen, December 4, 1936, MA. On Machen's fondness for movies, see, for example, his letters to his mother, May 14, 1913, March 11 and August 23, 1914, MA.

Colonel John Keddie

There is a noteworthy, exhilarating scene in the 1981 movie Chariots of Fire, where the Scottish runner Eric Liddell (who was actually born in China and was the first China-born athlete to win a gold medal at the Olympics) is knocked down in a race, gets back up and somehow manages to win the race by a nose. That scene is based on a true event.

Following that race, however, is a (fictitious) encounter between Liddell, Sam Mussabini and a "Colonel John Keddie, President of the SAAA". The latter character was made up as a tribute to a consultant for the film who provided expert guidance on Scottish amateur athletics and the person and faith of Eric Liddell, who is the real John Keddie.

John Keddie, author of the 2007 biography Running the Race: Eric Liddell, Olympic Champion and Missionary, as well as a biography of George Smeaton, a study of psalmody, and other writings, is still serving today as a minister of the Free Church of Scotland (Continuing).

If you watch the movie, be sure to take note of this brief, but significant reference to the man who helped bring Eric Liddell's story to the silver screen.