The scene is iconic, embedded indelibly in cinematic history. Everyone knows it: the runners’ feet slapping against the sand and surf, the noise of their splashing strides slowly giving way to the full tilt of Vangelis’ rousing theme. The camera itself now ascends, taking in the pack of runners, young men with hope in their hearts and wings on their heels, training against the windswept Scottish coast, their white shorts and shirts muddying with the sand and spray kicked up by the runners ahead. One by one the camera singles out the film’s main players. For each, the camera’s momentary gaze becomes a study in character, each man’s personality is played out in their respective countenance and manner of their run: eager competitiveness, unbound joy, mature confidence, and grim, near-mirthless, determination, respectively. I remember first seeing the scene when I was young. It made me want to strive for great things worth striving for. When I see it now, it makes me want to be young again.

I’m describing—I hope I needn’t tell you—Chariots of Fire, 1981, which centers on British runners Harold Abrahams, a Jew, and Eric Liddle, a devout Christian, as they and their teammates prepare for and compete at the 1924 Paris Summer Olympics. With the Olympic games returning to Paris tonight, it is an opportune time to see the film again. Do it!

A few years ago, following the death of actor Ben Cross, who played Abrahams, Rabbi Meir Soloveichik wrote an excellent reflection on the film. Soloveichik confesses to being obsessed with Chariots and he writes movingly of the “terrible Jewish irony that lies at its heart.” The irony is found in the contrast, first, between Liddle and Abrahams and the ways they live—or refuse to—their respective religious lives. Soloveichik laments that Abrahams’ response to his own Jewishness—and the varying degrees of antisemitism around him—is not one of “Jewish pride but assimilation.” On this point, the film was true to life. Soloveichik cites an anecdote from the real-life Abrahams, who wrote in the 1920s—the time the film is set—encouraging English Jewish athletes to ignore Sabbath restrictions in order to compete. Quoting from the letter, Soloveichik writes:

“One must make it clear,” Abrahams wrote, “that a strict adherence to Judaism would prevent one from participating in Saturday competitions and, as a result, the ‘strict’ Jews could never hope to attain international recognition, since at a conservative estimate ninety per cent of important competitions are held on a Saturday afternoon. A religion (qua such) that is one’s philosophy of life (or theistic views) has little if anything to do with the qualities which characterize an athlete.”

Abrahams’ sentiment is in stark contrast to Eric Liddell, for whom faith had everything to do with his athleticism and his character as an athlete. Soloveichik quotes approvingly from one of Chariots’ central moments in which Liddell declares, “I believe God made me for a purpose…But he also made me fast; and when I run, I feel his pleasure.” Liddell believed his primary purpose was to follow God’s call to ministry in China. Indeed, after the Paris games Liddell would return to China—he was bred there—where he would remain for the rest of his, tragically short, life. Following the Japanese invasion at the advent of the Asia-Pacific War, Liddell would be interned with other enemy civilian nationals—Westerners such as the Dutch, British, and Americans—in the Weihsien Internment camp.

A wonderful, if rather damning, book, Langdon Gilkey’s Shantung Compound, tells the larger story to which Liddell is a part. The book is an outstanding reflection on human behavior under pressure. Gilkey, who was interned with Liddell and, not incidentally, was a great scholar of Reinhold Niebuhr, the theologically imperfect patron saint of this magazine, insists that life in a civilian internment camp in North China presented a novel situation not found in other more notorious concentration camp systems—such as those in Japanese prisoner of war camps, the Soviet gulag, or the Nazi lagers. “We in the Weihsien camp,” he writes, “suffered no extreme hardships of limb, stomach, or spirit.” This allowed the creation and maintenance of a small civilization. “Had we been continually tortured and starved,” he notes, “no representative communal existence would have been possible.” At the same time, he asserts, the conditions were nevertheless “sufficiently close to the margin of survival” that “basic problems of the human lot” were able to manifest themselves rather clearly. Shantung Compound is a fascinating—and disturbing—window into the human soul and human society when experiencing duress. Liddell would not survive his time in the internment camp. While it was an undiagnosed brain tumor—and not direct action by the Japanese—that killed him, the conditions of the  camp rendered Liddell’s hope of surviving such a condition essentially nil. But all this runs well ahead of where Chariots of Fire ends. Yes, Liddell was made for China, but he has some running to do first. His intention was to “run in God’s name let the world stand back in wonder.”

Of the contrast between Abrahams and Liddell Soloveichik rues, “A rabbi watchingthe tale of Liddell and Abrahams cannot help but wish for the latter to be more like the former.” What Soloveichik has foremost in mind is each runner’s willingness—or refusal—to make particular kinds of accommodations. Liddell, of course, will famously refuse to race the qualifying heats of the 100-meters in Paris—an event in which he was favored to win gold—because they were to be held on a Sunday. A small portion of Chariots depicts Liddell’s stubbornly faithful to acquiesce to the demands of his own political and sporting federation authorities who entreat, cajole, and otherwise pressure him to run. Instead, on the Sunday in which he was meant to compete, Liddell gives a sermon on text drawn from Isaiah: “But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings, as eagles. They shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” This textual selection adds to what Soloveichik sees as Chariots’ primary—and most terrible—irony.

Those verses in Isaiah comprise the haftara, the prophetic passage, read in synagogue as an accompaniment to the Pentateuchal portion known as Lech Lecha, or “go forth.” God orders Abraham to leave for Canaan; it is the beginning of Israel’s story. For Jews, Isaiah’s words reference the Jewish journey of generations and speak to finding the courage to continue what Abraham started. Isaiah is indeed comparing faith to running a race; the passage reminds Jews that history is a marathon, not a dash, and we Jews ought to ponder the source of our ancestors’ endurance.

The rabbi sums it up this way: “Chariots of Fire unintentionally creates a contrast between our forefather Abraham and Harold Abrahams; it is a tale not only of one Jewish runner but of Jews throughout our age who ran away from who they were.” Abrahams’ story is a perfect example, Soloveichik laments, of a observation made by the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks:

Nothing could be more striking than the fact that a people whose very reason for being in the past was to be different, chosen, particular, should today define itself in purely universalist terms, forgetting—surely not accidentally—that it is precisely in our particularity that we enter and express the universal human condition.

A lot has happened in the century between the Paris games but, in many ways, nothing much has changed. To be sure, I’m not in entire agreement with Rabbi Sacks’ phrasing—which is probably little more than a quibble with semantics. But, pace Sacks’ wording—I hold that religious particularity is an accident, not the goal, of a life of faith. We are called to be faithful, not different. It may well be that difference is the inevitable consequence of faithfulness and that this difference has been and will be leveraged by the Divine to call unbelieving peoples to Himself, but integrity—not distinctiveness—is the point. This seems essential to make clear. I think much of what has gone astray in contemporary social wisdom has erred in over valuing particularity as a good in and of itself. Nevertheless, Sacks is right in the main and the themes of particularity and universalism—seen in the tension of religion and religion’s place in public life—has reared its head again—and again and again and again—in this Olympic year.

Consider, for instance, the recent declaration by French sporting officials that French Olympians will be prohibited from overt displays of religious particularity. French Olympic Committee President David Lappartient has said his country’s athletes are required to follow principles that apply to public sector workers in observance of France’s secular laws, which includes bans on such things as—let’s call them—“open-carry” crosses and hijabs. One of the many resulting tensions concerns French Sprinter Sounkamba Syllav, a member of the 400-meter French Olympic women’s and mixed team relay who has been barred from the Opening Ceremonies if she continues, as has been her custom throughout her sporting career, to insist on wearing a hijab. If things continue without resolution, she won’t be alone in being banned.

Whatever opinion I might have of hijabs—which, frankly, is near-zero (if anything—I sometimes find them rather alluring—which I realize is missing the point entirely) this is all really a bit silly—and more than a bit insulting arrogant—of the French authorities. But it’s also just the latest new news iteration of old news. Over time, France has famously—sometimes infamously—built up a political philosophy around the principle of laïcité—secularism. While freedom of religion and conscience are constitutionally recognized and guaranteed, they must coexist with the principle of neutrality enshrined in the French constitution and 1905 Law on the Separation of the Churches and State. Laïcité is intended to not interfere religious matters and vice versa. You’ll be forgiven for thinking recent events—including the war on the burkinis—suggest the idea has faltered. To my mind, the idea of laïcité has always been something of a myth. Pace the French—and John Rawls and however many millions of others—I am doubtful there is anything like a truly secular—that’s to say somehow religiously neutral—culture. Or way of life, language, ethic, etc. Human beings are irredeemably religious—whether the faith in question is theistic or atheistic of something other is beside the point.

But leaving aside French political philosophy, the French authorities’ ban on the hijab—and whatever other religious paraphernalia comes into their iron sites—would seem to compromise the very Olympic principles the Paris games are supposed to represent. Per links on the Paris Olympic website, these principles are still “excellence, respect, friendship.” One might think forcing a particular group of women to choose between their sporting passion and devotion to the pursuit of excellence on the one hand and their religious commitments on the other would be rather disrespectful. To say nothing about being unfriendly.

But the French aren’t the first to make a hash of the Olympic values—described on the International Olympic Committee’s webpage as, goofily, Olympism. The IOC introduces the principles of excellence, respect, and friendship as contemporary upgrades to the original principles outlined in the founding Olympic charter. The old values were: “encourage effort,” “preserve human dignity,” and “develop harmony.” While I think “excellence” is something of an upgrade to the more anemic “encourage effort,” I’m less confident about the latter two changes. Regardless, in the definition that accompanies “excellence” the IOC reverts back to the anemic: excellence is “encouraging people to be the best they can be.” Of course, this is fine as far as it goes and it marks the universal appeal and value of sport. Through doing hard things, including athletically hard things, people can, at their own individual levels, pursue the best they can be. There are incredible benefits to this. The pursuit of individual limits builds grit and is an extraordinary means toward enhancing character and even moral formation. But most of us will never be particularly excellent at the sports we do for play, health, and personal enhancement. Here is where the Olympics move away from the universal and to the particular few human beings who can truly be said to be excellent—to be able to do the thing they are striving to do in the manner that the thing was meant to be done. The Olympics ought to be about celebrating true athletic excellence. We stand and applaud those who can move, throw, pin to the ground, or lift better, higher, faster, and stronger than any of the rest of us. Obviously, even the IOC still celebrates the champions—not every participant receives a gold medal (yet). But it’s important that our rhetoric is accurate, because eventually behavior will follow it.

Speaking of higher, faster, and stronger. I note with disdain that the IOC also recently changed the Olympic motto of “Citius, Altius, Fortius” to “Citius, Altius, Fortius – Communiter” That is: “Highter, Faster, Stronger—Together!” Again, why the seeming diminishment of individual excellence? Perhaps this is where Rabbi Sacks was right to fear the loss of the value of particularity. At the risk of splitting hairs, the IOC appears to me to be falling into that flaccid and tiring contemporary habit of shying away from celebrating particularity—in the form of individual greatness—in favor of the merely universal. This is a loss.

While I quibble with where he precisely located particularity,  I do not quibble with his assertion that human beings are, every one of us, particular human beings who belong to particular tribes both national (in the big and little sense) as well as religious—and others as well. And all of this is essential to being human. CS Lewis reminded us somewhere that, as Christians, we have been called to be sheep in a fold and not drips in a bucket. Even in heaven, we will not lose our particularity. This is a lesson that Abrahams and the contemporary IOC—and their Parisian representatives—ought to have better understood.

But I will not let any of this too-overly dampen neither my rewatching of Chariots of Fire nor my enjoyment of the Olympic drama ahead of us. Olympians have never needed saccharine aphorisms or contemporary innovations to age-old principles to celebrate international friendship while trying to beat the socks off each other. There are universal principles—such as the pursuit of athletic excellence—to which particular human beings will more greatly excel than others—and far more greatly than the vast majority of us who will be perfectly content to sit on the curb and clap as they go by. The Olympics have always been an important inspiration to all of us, a means of discovering what human beings can be and do. In sport, as in few other places in life, there is nothing wrong in getting to the finish line alone. Higher! Stronger! Faster! And let the rest of us watch in wonder.

Curtains! And let the games begin!

USA! USA! USA!