Word: teen
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...schools across the U.S., as the Columbine horror galvanizes teenage evangelical Christians. "The Internet and the e-mail have been just huge on this among Christian kids and youth organizers," says Doug Clark, field director of San Diego's National Network of Youth Ministries. He reports hundreds of teen gatherings on the tragedy in "dozens" of states. Keith Malcom, the Wichita coordinator for Susan Teran's school group and several dozen others, describes a surge of youths volunteering to be "missionaries" in their schools. The Rev. Billy Epperhart, who officiated at four funerals in Littleton, has received calls from friends...
...vacuum. The new groups are not refuges for dweebs. Unlike their evangelical parents, who often defined themselves as outsiders, today's campus Christians, says Barnard College religion professor Randall Balmer, "are willing to engage the culture on its terms. They understand what's going on and speak the language." Teen evangelicals have their own rock concert circuit, complete with stage diving; their own clothing lines, like Witness Wear; and in the omnipresent wwjd ("What would Jesus do?") bracelet, their own breakthrough accessory...
...their own martyr. Cassie Bernall's life and death have inspired millions of Americans, but the tribe to which she belonged was that of adolescent evangelicalism. One need attend only one youth gathering to collect an anthology of similar stories: a lost teen dabbles in drugs and witchcraft, finally comes to Jesus and joins a mission to gang members. The difference in Cassie's case was the remarkable act of Christian witness that followed. Some reports have her simply answering yes when the Columbine gunman asked if she believed in God; others record the reply, "There...
Immediately after the Columbine slaughter, teen Christian groups gathered spontaneously on their campuses. Some headed reflexively for school flagpoles, as they had back in September while participating in the massive exercise in evangelical solidarity called See You at the Pole. Rallies planned for other purposes morphed into Littleton remembrances. At a long-planned April 24 jamboree by Teen Mania in Pontiac, Mich., speaker after speaker preached to a throng of 73,000 on Cassie's life and death (she once attended a Teen Mania meeting), and thousands signed an enormous condolence card. The same thing happened all over...
...American secularism. At Cassie's funeral, her pastor said she was in "the martyrs' hall of fame." She has been compared to the early female saints Perpetua and Felicity, and her interrogation by her murderer recalls Christian persecutions throughout history. But for youngsters the most important thing, explained Teen Mania attendee Heather Miller, 18, is that "a lot of martyrs have been older, and you don't hear about teens." (An exception, Joan of Arc, drew a nice audience for CBS last week...