Friday, May 16, 2008
Is Littleton's evangelical subculture a solution to the youth alienation that played a role in the Columbine killings, or a reflection of it?
May 15, 1999 | "This is a church on fire!"
It's Sunday morning, less than a mile from Columbine High School, and Trinity Christian Center is heaving and rumbling like an old-time tent revival. The frenzied congregation thrusts its arms up toward the heavens, belting out the spirit their souls just can't contain. No one's got the fever like a sunburned young high schooler, radiating from the choir like the wild orchids bursting through her sundress. Head thrown back, eyes squeezed shut, her lips keep charging straight through the instrumental jam:
This is a church on fire!
This is a Holy Spirit flame.
We have a burning desire,
To lift up Jesus name ...
Two weeks ago, the country's attention was turned to Trinity Christian Center, site of four Columbine victims' funerals. This was Rachel Scott's church, and the Columbine junior's funeral was nationally televised. What the cameras couldn't fully capture was the power of the evangelical Christian culture that has taken root in Littleton, and among its young people, as it has in many of the nation's suburbs.
Anyone in America with a working television, of course, sporadically witnessed the outpouring of faith in the wake of the killing spree by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, which left 15 dead. One after another, grieving students described the victims as "servants of Christ " and spoke of their "personal relationships with Jesus." The morning after the shooting, almost 100 students piled together into a huge group prayer hug in Clement Park, arms raised to the sky, voices joined in hymns to the Lord. The cluster alternated between songs and spiritual proclamations. "We feel the presence of Satan, operating in our midst!" a young girl cried out. Students flocked to churches for comfort, often trekking to three or four grief ceremonies a night. And most of the funerals were held at three evangelical churches: Trinity Christian Center, Foothills Bible Church and West Bowles Community Church.
Meanwhile, across the nation, Columbine senior Cassie Bernall has become a modern-day Christian martyr for proclaiming her faith in God immediately before being gunned down. In trouble with friends and in school, Cassie was forced by her parents -- whom she'd threatened in letters to kill -- to attend West Bowles Community Church, where, after protest, she underwent a spiritual awakening and was born again.
"Millions have been 'touched by a martyr,'" her pastor, the Rev. George Kirsten, told his congregation this past Sunday. He shared a vision youth pastor Dave McPherson received while ministering to the Bernalls: "I saw Cassie, and I saw Jesus, hand in hand. And they had just gotten married. They had just celebrated their marriage ceremony. And Cassie kind of winked over at me like, 'Dave, I'd like to talk, but I'm so much in love.' Her greatest prayer was to find the right guy. Don't you think she did?" And while Kirsten works to console his grieving congregation over Cassie's loss, he sees the girl's murder as an opportunity to save more souls. "Pack that ark with as many people as possible," he says.
While that strong Christian faith proved invaluable in comforting this community after the killings, it also ignited simmering tensions in Littleton. Those tensions briefly rose to a boil after the memorial ceremony on April 25, which drew Vice President Al Gore and 70,000 mourners, packed in more witnessing for Jesus than any Sunday sermon at the local evangelical churches. The Rev. Don Marxhausen, pastor of St. Philip Lutheran Church in Littleton, was quoted by the Denver Post as feeling "offended," and "hit over the head with Jesus." Marxhausen serves as de facto leader of local Protestant churches, and officiated over the small, private funeral for Dylan Klebold. Non-Christians felt excluded, too, and the memorial's lily-white lineup offended many non-whites.
Colorado is certainly well known for evangelical activity. The Promise Keepers are headquartered just ten miles from the school in Denver, Focus on the Family operates 50 miles south in Colorado Springs, and the regional Mormon temple serving several states sits right there in Littleton. A Salon News survey of local churches and church associations indicated nearly twice as many evangelicals as Catholics active in the area, a radical departure from national figures. All the local Littleton clergy report active youth movements, in addition to student-sponsored groups such as the Columbine Bible Club. One evangelical minister described the typical youth ministry as expecting attendance at two meetings a week and two additional monthly events, for a typical schedule of 10 commitments per month.
But in the wake of the Columbine killings and the evangelical proselytizing -- and controversy -- they engendered, some local evangelicals insist Littleton is no hotbed of born-again culture. "Any time there's a major catastrophe, a lot of 'God talk' surfaces," said a leading evangelical minister. "Give us six months, and most of that will be gone." But others disagree. A staffer in that minister's own office described Columbine as "a very active churchgoing community." And in an indication of the growing tension in the community, the normally outspoken evangelical minister insisted on anonymity.
Others aren't so shy about proclaiming their influence. "Men and women, open your eyes!" wailed the Rev. Bill Oudemolen from the pulpit at Foothills Bible Church the Sunday after the massacre. "The kids are turning to God! They're going to churches!"
Weeks after the worst school-based killings in American history, Littleton is still trying to figure out what that really means, and whether this emerging religious culture is a solution to youth alienation that played a role in the Columbine killings, or a reflection of it.
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