as the public "grieving process" gone too far in Littleton, Colorado? Is the tragic shooting at Columbine High School being exploited as a full-fledged platform for posturing politicians and an intolerant religious agenda?

   With national media attention still riveted on the events of nearly two weeks ago, questions are being raised about the media free-for-all which has dominated the top segment of network news (despite the background of the war in Kosovo), and the direction of the orchestrated religious activities which have served to memorialize the victims. Case in point is the outrage which some Christians, black and Jewish leaders are now expressing over last Sunday's memorial service, which attracted 70,000 spectators and was covered live by CNN.

   While national news media is still giving play to the public anguish over the Littleton shootings, information about the split in religious ranks is only now beginning to emerge. The story has leaked out only in a handful of papers, including -- surprisingly -- the Washington Times, and the Denver Post. A headline running in the Times noted, "Evangelical tone of memorial spurs backlash," while the Post story -- also running several days after the April 25 service -- declared "Sunday event offended some."

   Rev. Patrick Demmer of the Greater Metro Ministerial Alliance described the memorial service as "pretty vanilla," adding "No people of color spoke or sang." And Rev. Marxhausen, head of a Lutheran congregation in Littleton, complained that after Sunday's service he was left feeling "hit over the head with Jesus."

   Another Alliance member, Rabbi Stephen Foster of the Temple Emanuel, said that while the entire community was asked to participate in the high-profile Sunday event, "it turned into an evangelical prayer service." Foster told the Washington Times, "I've had many complaints from people saying 'Where were the Jews?' but that's not the issue. The issue was one of insensitivity to the kind of statements being made that were exclusively directed to not just Christians, but fundamentalist Christians." Even more direct was the opinion of Rabbi Fred Greenspach, the only non-Christian religious leader who participated in the Sunday event; he termed the service exemplary of an "ignorant, narrow-minded" brand of Christian doctrine.

   Some in the Denver region faith community have taken offense with the remarks of Rev. Franklin Graham, son of pop culture religious icon Billy Graham, and those of Jefferson County pastor Gerald Nelson. Graham echoed the refrain that people could only be saved from damnation by accepting Jesus Christ. Rev. Nelson told Sunday's throng about two women imprisoned in a concentration camp during the Nazi Holocaust, one of whom supposedly accepted Christ. Rabbi Foster described this story as "pretty offensive," and said that he was particularly insulted with the implication that Christians stood better odds of surviving the Holocaust than Jews.

   Rev. Graham was also taken to task by the president of the Interfaith Alliance of Colorado. Following Sunday's memorial, Rev. Michael Carrier told the Denver Post, "I felt like he was trying to terrorize us into heaven instead of loving us into heaven." He added that the gathering "was supposed to be for all the people of Colorado and the nation to find solace, not an evangelical service." Rev. Demmer concurred, noting "If you have a state memorial service and Franklin Graham says you have to accept Jesus, you're asking to offend people..."

   Other examples of the heavy emphasis placed on fundamentalist and evangelical Christianity was the appearance of Christian music stars Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith and Phil Driscoll; Ms. Grant has been criticized by some Christians for her recent divorce, and what some claim is a shift in her repertoire from religious content to more secular pop themes. Two Columbine High students also sang "Columbine, Friend of Mine," described by the Times newspaper as "a song with a Christian spiritual message they wrote with help from their pastor."

"I felt like he was trying to terrorize us into heaven instead of loving us into heaven..."

   Staking out a less confrontational attitude on this issue was Rev. Lucia Guzman of the Colorado Council of Churches. She observed that the memorial service represented the religious demographics of Littleton, which was composed mostly of "what you might call evangelical or independent churches."

   Another debate is also emerging, this one focusing on the row of 15 crosses which overlooks the impromptu Columbine memorial. Some note that there are crosses for the two gunmen, Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17. During memorial services, though, including Sunday's activity, only the names of the 13 victims were read aloud, and 13 doves were released as part of the ceremony. Christians seem to be divided over whether or not Harris and Klebold should be recognized in any memorial, forgiven for their actions, or damned to hell as agents of pure evil.

   Sunday's event was a clear commingling of public figures and funds with religious activity. The memorial service took place in a public park and was organized by Colorado Governor Bill Owens, "a young Republican with close ties to his state's religious right," according to a story in the April 26 edition of USA TODAY. Along with preaching by Franklin Graham and Jerry Nelson, Roman Catholic archbishop Charles Chaput shared the altar and microphone, as did Vice President Albert Gore. "Just before the benediction, four Air Force jets roared overhead, one soaring aloft in the 'missing man' formation," noted USA TODAY.

   One player in the Columbine High who sees the shootings there as a burning political issue is Rev. Bruce Porter, pastor of Celebration Christian Fellowship. Porter officiated at the funeral of victim Rachel Joy Scott, and urged local teens to "take up the blood-stained torch" of the murdered students.

   Porter was also the guest at a taping yesterday in Virginia Beach, Virginia of Pat Robertson's "The 700 Club" program. He appeared with Gordon Robertson, son of the famous religious broadcaster and founder of the Christian Coalition.

"Prayer in schools was officially reestablished on April 20, 1999 because it was accompanied by bombs and shootings. It is always the blood of martyrs that acts as rocket fuel for the church..."

   "Prayer in schools was officially reestablished on April 20, 1999," Porter declared, "because it was accompanied by bombs and shootings. It is always the blood of martyrs that acts as rocket fuel for the church."

   Ms.Scott, a 17-year old junior at Columbine, was eulogized as a religious girl who had considered a calling to be a missionary. According to the Virginian-Pilot newspaper, she was a member of a youth group at the Orchard Road Christian Center in Littleton.

   Porter told the "700 Club" audience that the government had "failed" the Columbine victims. "The police have failed them. We as parents have failed them... It's time for Christian students to stand up." Porter added, "I would tell them (teen agers) that they have to become intolerant of evil in the midst... We must as a nation become intolerant of those who advocate evil."

   Robertson used the occasion to note that Christian Broadcasting Network was donating more than 1,000 copies of its new edition of the Bible to be distributed to homes in Littleton. "Young people feel alienated," he declared. "Lord, change their hearts. Send messengers from your heart to preach the good news to them."

   Meanwhile, Robertson's media machine continues to drum out the message that prayer is needed now, more than ever, in the nation's "at risk" public schools. "The violent storm that tore through the lives of this Middle American suburb was spawned by a failing post-Christian nation unwittingly turned against its own young," declared CBN reporter Michael Patrick. "We are often blind to how our kids are caught in a hail of murderous images by what Pope John Paul II called a 'culture of death.'" Patrick's report included the dramatic accusation, "Drip by drip, our children are slowly poisoned by toxic images in the media and entertainment ... A teenage gang copycats a violent movie, while the film's producers hide behind the First Amendment and blame free market appetites..."

   Patrick also quotes Wall Street Journal columnist and author Peggy Noonan, who supposedly refutes the argument that parents and others are empowered to avoid violent images by changing viewing habits. "There is no channel to change to." Patrick adds, "From shock jocks on radio to comedy witchcraft, much of our entertainment winks and snickers along with evil and sneers at what is good."

   CBN has also become a platform for further denunciations of "rebellious" youth, including the "Goth" subculture mentioned in the early days of the Columbine shootings coverage. Noting that Columbine High School boasted an "active Christian youth community," Patrick adds that in many public schools, "God is less popular or welcome than the so-called 'Goths'."

   Media pundits, religious leaders and politicians continue to focus on a dazzling array of causative agents which may have had a role in prompting Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold to open fire on fellow students and teachers. The ready availability of guns, violent movies and video games, rejection by peers (including females), the internet -- all have been put under the 15-seconds-of-fame microscope of media scrutiny; there seems to be little consensus, though, as to the "why" behind this story.

   The interplay of complex variables, or the more disturbing prospect that we may never know for certain what motivated the two youngsters behind the Columbine High slayings has not stopped proponents of the "school prayer fix" from advancing their claim that solutions to manifold social problems may be found by instituting religiosity and faith into the environment of the public school system. Since the battery of early-1960s Supreme Court cases such as MURRAY vl. CURLETT, ENGLE v. VITALE and others which struck down the practice of mandatory prayer and Bible verse recitation in classrooms, prayer supporters have attempted to correlate that legal breakthrough with rising rates of juvenile delinquency, drug use, pregnancy and other social indicators.

   There is no evidence that the flood of letters to newspaper opinions columns, calls to afternoon radio talk shows, or op-ed pieces by columnists is generating any momentum for a school prayer amendment on capitol hill -- at least yet. But there is a significant outcry for school prayer, not just from the country's religious right, but commentators such as Betsy Hart, a contributor to CNN and the Fox News Channel. In her current column, "The need for prayer in schools," Hart criticizes "the ACLU's best attempts in recent decades to ban religion-specific prayer and other similar religious references and activities from the public classrooms." Hart likewise repeats the Christian "horror stories" about students not being permitted for wear tee shirts with Christian slogans, or the case of a youngster ostensibly prohibited from mentioning Jesus in an essay -- tales which have been called into question for their accuracy before -- and describes this as part of a "successful crusade" to thwart religious expression by students. She also praised the decision of school officials to attend last Sunday's memorial service in Littleton, "what might ordinarily be perceived by civil libertarians as a violation of the separation of church and state doctrine..." A harsher judgment was made by a letter writer to the Birmingham (Alabama) News, who charged "I'll bet the American atheists (sic) are having a ball now... The Denver school killings surely are something atheists rejoice in."

   While most media has stopped short of claiming that Harris and Klebold targeted only religious students in the bloody rampage, commentators and faith propagandists are singling out the case of 17-year old victim Cassie Bernall. According to accounts, in the midst of the shooting, Bernall was reportedly asked by one of the gunmen whether she believed in god. She responded that she did, and was then shot. Her family told reporters, "Her life was rightly centered around our lord Jesus. It was for her strong faith in God and His promise of eternal life that made her stand."

   Bernall was profiled in one CNN piece as a "troubled youth" who was placed into a strict Christian behavior-modification program at about age 15; she emerged as a religious youngster, thus typifying the paradigm of a rebellious and defiant teen supposedly transformed by religious indoctrination. At her funeral last Monday, she was eulogized by a minister: "Cassie died a martyr's death. She went to the martyr's hall of fame." Franklin Graham singled out Bernall in his oration at the Sunday memorial service in Littleton, as did Vice President Gore who insisted that adults should find inspiration from Bernall's "spiritual courage."

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