On April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed twelve fellow students and one teacher at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Two of the victims of the Columbine massacre, Cassie Bernall and Rachel Scott, reportedly were asked by the gunmen if they believed in God. Both supposedly answered 'Yes' and were killed. Within days of their death, Cassie and Rachel were being hailed as modern-day martyrs and are seen by many American evangelicals as the sparks of a religious revival among teenagers. Cassie and Rachel, as innocents martyred for faith, also became useful symbols for those seeking to advance a conservative political agenda and to lay the blame for Columbine at the feet of their liberal opponents. According to police investigators, however, Cassie and Rachel may never have been asked by their killers about God. They may have been simply victims of a senseless crime rather than martyrs to a cause. The Martyrs of Columbine provides a careful examination of the available evidence and attempts to discover what really occurred. Despite these questions the martyr-stories continued to be told and the religious and political use of Cassie and Rachel continues. The popular significance of the martyrs of Columbine persists, and may even be growing. How and why is this happening? The Martyrs of Columbine is a groundbreaking investigation of what this tragedy has come and will come to mean in American religion, politics, and culture.

This memoir is of an ordinary teenager growing up in suburban Colorado, and faced, as all teenagers are, with difficult choices and pressures. Told by her mother, it is Cassie's story, one of the Columbine High students killed by two schoolmates.

"I am not going to apologize for speaking the name of Jesus . . . If I have to sacrifice everything . . . I will." ûRachel Scott The Columbine tragedy in April 1999 pierced the heart of our country. We later learned that the teenage killers specifically targeted Rachel Scott and mocked her Christian faith on their chilling, homemade videotapes. Rachel Scott died for her faith. Now her parents talk about Rachel's life and how they have found meaning in their daughter's martyrdom in the aftermath of the school shooting. Rachel's Tears comes from a heartfelt need to celebrate this young girl's life, to work through the grief and the questions of a nation, and to comfort those who have been touched by violence in our schools today. Using excerpts and drawings from Rachel's own journals, her parents offer a spiritual perspective on the Columbine tragedy and provide a vision of hope for preventing youth violence across the nation. Meets national education standards.

Columbine High April 1999.

Ten years in the works, a masterpiece of reportage, this is the definitive account of the Columbine massacre, its aftermath, and its significance, from the acclaimed journalist who followed the story from the outset. "The tragedies keep coming. As we reel from the latest horror . . ." So begins a new epilogue, illustrating how Columbine became the template for nearly two decades of "spectacle murders." It is a false script, seized upon by a generation of new killers. In the wake of Newtown, Aurora, and Virginia Tech, the imperative to understand the crime that sparked this plague grows more urgent every year. What really happened April 20, 1999? The horror left an indelible stamp on the American psyche, but most of what we "know" is wrong. It wasn't about jocks, Goths, or the Trench Coat Mafia. Dave Cullen was one of the first reporters on scene, and spent ten years on this book-widely recognized as the definitive account. With a keen investigative eye and psychological acumen, he draws on mountains of evidence, insight from the world's leading forensic psychologists, and the killers' own words and drawings-several reproduced in a new appendix. Cullen paints raw portraits of two polar opposite killers. They contrast starkly with the flashes of resilience and redemption among the survivors. Expanded with a New Epilogue

Utilising a wide range of early sources, this title identifies the roots of the concept of Christian martyrdom, as lloking at how it has been expressed in events such as the shootings at Columbine High School in 1999.

On a fateful spring day at Columbine High, others lifted up their torch and joined the crimson path of the martyrs' way. We cannot forget their sacrifice. This story graphically demonstrates why the Church will continue to bear a brilliant torch of God's love to all nations until the day of Christ's glorious return.