The Columbine shootings and "filling the ark"

I just finished the book Columbine by Dave Cullen, and I highly recommend this book because it explodes so many of the myths surrounding the Columbine massacre.

The biggest myth is the so-called Christian martyrdom of Cassie Bernall.

According to the myth, one of the shooters asked Bernall if she believed in God. When she replied in the affirmative, she was shot in the head. This myth was started by a young survivor in the library, who related the story to the press on the afternoon of the shooting and it quickly became one of the leading narratives of Columbine.

Except it wasn't true.

The young witness wasn't lying, though - he was confused. There was another victim in the library that day who had been shot and wounded. This victim was underneath a table directly behind the witness. She was bleeding profusely and was approached again by one of the shooters. who asked her if she believed in God. Yes, she replied. The shooter walked away. It was a simple case of mistaken identity, understandable given the unbelievable stress and horror that was taking place in that library. When the witness revisited the library after the shooting and was told the location of Bernall he realized his error - and promptly got sick to his stomach.

There were two surviving witnesses to Bernall's shooting, and both were in very close proximity to her - one was directly next to her under a table. Both told police that Bernall never spoke with her killer before she was murdered.

The wounded young woman who told the shooter that she believed in God was scoffed at as a 'copycat', trying to horn in on Bernall's martyrdom, in the days after the shooting. The fact that the killers walked away from her didn't fit in the narrative of martyrdom. And the martyrdom of Carrie Bernall mattered - one of the evangelical preachers proclaimed that her story (and the tragedy itself) would 'fill the ark', i.e., bring in huge numbers of new young evangelical Christians, inspired by her story.

Bernall's mother wrote a book entitled She Said Yes: The Unlikely Martyrdom of Cassie Bernall. This book has become a favorite of evangelical Christians, even though by the time Mrs. Bernall wrote the book she knew that someone else's daughter had actually said Yes - and had survived. Cassie Bernall quickly became a symbol to evangelicals, and to this day her 'martyrdom' is still held tightly by this community.

I found Cassie Bernall's story extremely sad. She was a troubled young woman who, shortly before her death, turned her life around when she found Christ. She had trouble fitting in, even with her Church youth group, and in her last moments she heard one of the killers hit the desk above her, say, "Peekaboo", and shoot her in the head. It's a horrible story and a horrible death. To give her a false narrative - bearing false witness - is one of the saddest parts of this story to me. "Filling the ark" by exploiting the death of a young women is disgusting. And to this day, the young survivor who DID profess her faith before one of the shooters is still considered a wannabe by the evangelical community.

It's a disturbing book on a lot of levels - especially considering law enforcement knew that Eric Harris was openly boasting of building bombs at least a year before the shootings, and did nothing - but the fact that the media has done almost no reporting of how Cassie Bernall actually died, and has allowed the exploitation of her to stand, is the saddest part of it. This eagerness to find martyrs is completely foreign to me.

Oh yeah,

:rofl:

This is the cover for She Said Yes



If my daughter had been murdered, there's not a chance I'd let the publisher put crosshairs over her photo. I'd scream every time I saw it.

This is a snippet from the many untruths contained within the book:

People say that nothing happens without a purpose--that perhaps Cassie was fulfilling a divine plan, or that in standing up for her beliefs, she was being used by God to further His kingdom. At a certain level, I take comfort in these thoughts. They give meaning to what others have called a "senseless" tragedy, and remind me that a life cut short need not to be a wasted life.

She probably *would* have stood up for her beliefs had she been given the opportunity - but it's just not how it happened, and her mother knew it.