A memorial for 13 victims stands around the graves of three of the Columbine High School shooting victims at Chapel Hill Memorial Gardens in Littleton, Colorado.
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And now their own martyr. Cassie Bernall's life and death have inspired millions of Americans, but the tribe to which she belonged was that of adolescent evangelicalism. One need attend only one youth gathering to collect an anthology of similar stories: a lost teen dabbles in drugs and witchcraft, finally comes to Jesus and joins a mission to gang members. The difference in Cassie's case was the remarkable act of Christian witness that followed. Some reports have her simply answering yes when the Columbine gunman asked if she believed in God; others record the reply, "There is a God, and you need to follow along God's path." In either case, he murdered her; and in her commitment teens see a vital challenge to their Christian identity. A posting by a Florida girl cyber-named Marrinn on a Christian bulletin board is typical: "I don't drink. I don't smoke. I've never done drugs. But I haven't totally pledged all of my being to God. When I heard [Cassie's] story I realized she gave up everything. She DIED for Him... Would I have done the same?"
Immediately after the Columbine slaughter, teen Christian groups gathered spontaneously on their campuses. Some headed reflexively for school flagpoles, as they had back in September while participating in the massive exercise in evangelical solidarity called See You at the Pole. Rallies planned for other purposes morphed into Littleton remembrances. At a long-planned April 24 jamboree by Teen Mania in Pontiac, Mich., speaker after speaker preached to a throng of 73,000 on Cassie's life and death (she once attended a Teen Mania meeting), and thousands signed an enormous condolence card. The same thing happened all over the U.S. during observances of the National Day of Prayer on May 6. A videotape made by Bernall's parents on which her mother states that "Cassie was born for this" spread from group to group like wildfire.
Mainline Protestantism does not make much of martyrdom, but the more emotional evangelical variety honors it, sometimes in connection with murdered missionaries or persecuted Christians in places like China and Sudan, and sometimes to lend strength in the face of indignities suffered at the hands of American secularism. At Cassie's funeral, her pastor said she was in "the martyrs' hall of fame." She has been compared to the early female saints Perpetua and Felicity, and her interrogation by her murderer recalls Christian persecutions throughout history. But for youngsters the most important thing, explained Teen Mania attendee Heather Miller, 18, is that "a lot of martyrs have been older, and you don't hear about teens." (An exception, Joan of Arc, drew a nice audience for CBS last week.)