Kimmie Cornell, left, and Brittney Pastine stand over their friend Rachel Scott's casket during Saturday's funeral service. (Reuters)

By Amy Goldstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 27, 1999; Page A8

For her funeral yesterday morning, friends of Cassie Bernall had stitched together a video, interspersing their remembrances of the Columbine High School junior with photographs of the young woman with long blond hair, a wide smile and slender cross at her throat.

"Her eyes shone with Christ light," one of the friends said in the video.

"Cassie was one of the strongest Christians I've ever known," said another friend. "I knew that she was so willing to die for Christ."

Added a third: "I just thank God she went out ... a martyr. She went out dying for what she believed."

As the first jolt of tragedy has begun yielding to a deeper search for meaning, the deaths of at least a few of Littleton's dozen murdered teenagers are being understood – locally and in churches across the United States – through the prism of Christianity.

As the identity of the victims began to seep out last week, it became evident that some apparently had been selected by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the gun-wielding pair who rampaged the school, because of their fervent religious faith.

Now, in sermons and youth groups and quiet moments of personal reflection, these students are being heralded in saintlike terms. For some teenagers and adults, the deaths are strengthening individual belief. For others, the senseless violence has evoked a specter of religious persecution that is unnerving in a nation founded on religious tolerance.

"The question one has to ask oneself is, are these incidents exceptions ... or are they Christian targets in a certain climate of hate?" said Richard Cizik, director of the Washington office of the National Association of Evangelicals. "There are some religious leaders who will use this as prima facie evidence that there is ... a common thread of animus."

Such interpretation is not surprising. For one thing, last week's tragedy took its greatest toll on teenagers. In addition, it took place at a time when Christianity, especially in its evangelical form, is attracting increasing interest among adolescents and young adults across the country. "Young people are looking for some kind of spirituality in this life," said Diana L. Hayes, an assistant professor of theology at Georgetown University who studies American religious trends.

The shootings were the topic of Sunday sermons from pulpits across the country. And certainly, as the people of Littleton go from funeral to funeral, religious explanations abound.

Such themes were evident Saturday at the funeral for Rachel Scott, a 17-year-old junior who went to church three times a week and had told friends she hoped to become a missionary. "We consider her to be a Christian American martyr," said the Rev. Barry Palser, youth minister at Orchard Road Christian Center, where Scott had belonged to the youth group for the last several months.

"Rachel was a passionate Christian," Palser said in an interview the day she was buried. "Inside that [school] library. they knew what they were doing. They knew what they were going after. That's what Hitler did."

For people inclined to seek out Christian meaning, Bernall's death offers even more overt symbolism. She, too, had been in the Columbine library when the assailants burst in. One asked her whether she believed in God. In her last words, just before the shots rang out, she replied that she did.

"Cassie died a martyr's death," the Rev. George Kirsten told the 2,000 mourners who crammed into West Bowles Community Church. "She went to the martyrs' hall of fame." Many students agreed. "I think she died for a cause. She died on her belief, and she stood up for it," Jeff Morris, who attended Deer Creek Community Church with Bernall, said on his way into her funeral."

"We've talked quite a bit about those two ladies," said Kenneth McGarry, who works with 80 students as youth pastor for First Presbyterian Church and Calvary Episcopal Church in nearby Golden. "It has caused the kids to think, what would happen if they were in their shoes. Would they be afraid to say anything? Would they just run out and try to save their own skin?"

At Trinity Christian Center in Littleton, which is holding four funerals this week, youth pastor Eddie Timmons said that many of the 60 teenagers in the church's youth group knew Scott. But it was the manner in which Bernall died that has left the deepest impression. "We've had just countless young people tell me, it's hard to believe what she did. ... She stood up for her faith. If you have principles you can die for, that's an awful responsibility to uphold, and she did," Timmons said.

In the process of reflecting on Bernall's death, Timmons said, many young people in Denver "have stepped up their relationship with God."

Staff writers Tom Kenworthy in Denver and Bill Broadway in Washington contributed to this report.