No, she did not say yes

My son was two months old on an April day 20 years ago when I decided to go shopping. 

I'd heard about a shooting at a high school in Colorado, in suburban Denver, called Columbine High, and I'm sure I thought something like, "How awful!" before I went about my day.

I remember coming home and while stopped at the stoplight at the CVS near my house, hearing on the radio that the kids were coming out, running out with their hands raised.  I thought, thank goodness it's over.

Then I went home and turned on the TV.

Later, I saw the first report of  "25 dead."

I felt sick. 

Later, the figure was revised to 12 dead.  The twelve included the two shooters. 

"Columbine" is actually the name of a flower.  Since April 20, 1999, "Columbine" has become synonymous with "school shooting".

My son has grown up under the shadow of Columbine and the other school shootings that have since taken place.  I don't think we'll ever shake that shadow.  Once a Pandora's box of evil is opened, there's almost no way to shut it.

There's one myth, however, that I wish we would lay to rest:  the myth that Cassie Bernall was a martyr for Christ. 

In the first reports of the Columbine shooting, it came out that Cassie, who was in the library--where most of the killings took place--was asked by one of the shooters, "Do you believe in God?" She answered, "Yes," and she was shot and killed.  (I heard this story on NBC the day after the shootings.)

Evangelical Christians seized on this story because it embodied everything they love:  someone standing up for the cause of Christ who was not ashamed to say "yes, I believe in God" in the face of death, and who was killed for their belief. 

There's just one problem with this story.

It's not true.

Craig Scott, whose sister Rachel was one of the twelve who was murdered, was in the library that horrible day.    Investigators took him back into the library and asked him to recreate what happened, and when asked, where did the voice come from that said, "yes", he pointed away from where Cassie Bernall had been hiding under a table and toward where another student, Valeen Schnurr, had been. 

In addition, a teacher in the library who'd called 911 left the phone line open for eight minutes.  Events in the library were caught on that 911 tape. 

What actually happened was that Eric Harris looked under the table where Cassie was, said, "Peek-a-boo," and shot her.  It was a few moments later, when Valeen Schnurr began screaming, "Oh, my God?" that Dylan Klebold asked her if she believed in God. She said "yes" and when asked "why", she said, "because I believe and my parents brought me up that way."  Valeen was shot but ultimately survived.

Cassie's mother, Misty, wrote a book about her daughter, titled "She Said Yes".  Misty described her daughter as a teenager who'd become rebellious and nearly suicidal.  But in the last year of her life, she turned back towards her faith.  Cassie's father said that after Cassie attended a weekend church retreat, that she'd come back a completely different person. 

I don't believe that anyone deliberately set out to tell a lie about Cassie Bernall.  I've long believed that the events of that horrible day played out like a game of "telephone" where something is repeated down a long line of people and details are changed with every repetition.  It takes time and effort to gather up all the pieces of evidence and lay them out in order to figure out what really happened.  I think that by the time evidence was sifted through, arranged, and the final report written, Cassie's supposed "martyrdom" had so embedded itself into public consciousness that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to correct the impression that she truly had "laid down her life for Christ". 

Later in 1999, Family Christian Bookstores came out with a line of T-Shirts and keychains with the slogan, "Yes I Believe In God".  That was the moment I developed a distaste for Christian merchandising (known also as "Jesus junk".)  To me, that line of merchandise was a blatant attempt to capitalize on a horrible event. 

Ten years ago, journalist Dave Cullen published his book "Columbine", which is considered the definitive account of the Columbine shootings.  He devotes several pages to Cassie and the story of her alleged martyrdom. 

Between Cullen's book, the final report on Columbine, and the testimony of several witnesses (including Cassie's friend Emily Wyant), the evidence shows that it's time to lay this myth to rest, once and for all:

Cassie Bernall did not say "yes" when asked "do you believe in God".
Valeen Schnurr said "yes" when asked "do you believe in God".
Cassie Bernall was not martyred for her faith in God.
Cassie Bernall was murdered by a sociopath who also shot many other people before finally killing himself.
Cassie Bernall discovered faith in the last year of her life.  She did say "yes" to God.
Cassie Bernall is not a martyr. 
Cassie Bernall did not say "yes" and die.
Valeen Schnurr said "yes" and lived.
People did not initially intend to lie when reporting that Cassie said "yes, I believe in God".
Some people did, however, refuse to correct the impression when the facts proved that story wrong. 

Cassie deserves to be remembered as a daughter whose life ended too soon.  She deserves to be remembered as the person she was, a girl who lost her way for a while and who found it again. 

But despite what some people--and unfortunately, some of those people are Christians--would want you to believe . . . no, she did not say yes.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation. 
  

No, I don't trust them . . .

I no longer trust male leaders in either the evangelical church or conservative politics.  If they don't abuse people, they support those who do.

When I put that statement out on Facebook a while back, I was told that I was "painting with a broad brush".  But it's very hard not to paint with a broad brush when you see the same story over and over and over, with variations on the same theme of sexual sin. 

The Roy Moore story is self-explanatory, and I won't go any further into its sordid details. 

In the evangelical church, you have several prominent leaders who have fallen prey to sexual sin.  I refer you to this link from an excellent blog which covers issues of abuse in the church.

The latest in the bunch?  Andy Savage, a pastor in Memphis, Tennessee, whose sexual assault of a 17-year-old member of his youth group just went public. 

Bloggers Dee Parsons and Wanda (Deb) Martin published this story last week on their blog, The Wartburg Watch.  (Warning:  There is graphic, possible triggering content in this story and a graphic description of sexual activity in my paragraphs below.)

In the early spring of 1998, when Jules Woodson was 17, she was a member of the youth group at Woodlands Parkway Baptist Church (now known as StoneBridge Church) in The Woodlands, Texas (a suburb of Houston).  Andy Savage was 23 and her youth minister.

One evening, he offered to drive her home from youth group.  But when he drove past the turnoff he was supposed to take to bring her home, she asked what he was doing and he said something like, "you'll see".

She thought he was taking her for ice cream.

Instead, he drove her to a deserted, heavily wooded area, unzipped his pants, pulled out his penis, and told her to perform oral sex on him.  She was scared and embarrassed, but she did as she was told.  He then asked her to unbutton her shirt.  She did.  He touched her breasts both over and under her bra.

And then he jumped out of the truck, raced over to her side, and started saying, "What I have done?  I'm so sorry.  Jules, you can't tell anyone.  You have to take this to the grave with you."

He took her home after that.

She ended up telling her senior pastor, Larry Cotton. 

The first question he asked was, "So you're telling me you participated?"

Her heart sank to the floor, and she felt a wave of shame and guilt.

Except for confiding in members of her female discipleship group, she told no one until recently, when a friend asked her what had happened back then. 

Andy Savage is now a pastor at Highpoint Church Memphis.  This past Sunday, he publicly admitted to a "sexual incident" that happened 20 years ago. 

The result?

His congregation gave him a standing ovation.

Andy Savage committed a crime.  Because the statute of limitations has run out, he will never be held legally accountable for what he did to Jules Woodson.  This was not a "sexual incident" where both parties were willing participants.  This was a crime, sexual assault, that was committed against a teenage girl.  This was not a "mistake" or just simply a "sin" that deserved a standing ovation for Savages' "repentance".  This was a crime.

For anyone who asks, why didn't she report it?  She did.  She told her senior pastor. 

Why didn't she go to the police?  Well, in many churches, people are encouraged--read "told"--to handle such problems in-house and NOT go to the police.  In fact, several years ago, when a Church of Christ minister and his wife discovered that their son had been raped by a church member, they did go to the police--and some members of their congregation wanted to know why they couldn't "work it out" with a fellow brother in Christ.  (That "fellow brother in Christ" ended up murdering the minister's wife and child.)

Since this story broke, reaction has been swift.  Bethany House Publishers canceled a book that Savage wrote on marriage.  KLOVE, the Christian broadcasting group, dropped him from a cruise he was scheduled to participate in.  And the national news has picked up Jules Woodson's story. 

If this were just an isolated incident of one minister, I wouldn't be so angry.  But this story comes in the midst of #metoo allegations from Hollywood and from politics.  It also comes after reading "same song, second, third, fourth, etc." verse from so many who are considered leaders in evangelical culture. 

So, to those who say that I paint with a broad brush, I'll just give you the same answer I gave at the beginning of this article:

No, I don't trust them.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.