Justin Watson. The Martyrs of : Faith and the Politics of Tragedy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. xii + 212 pp. $24.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-312-23957-2.

Reviewed by Arthur Remillard

Published on H-USA (December, 2003)

Restoration and the Memory of Martyrdom calism, religion, popular culture, and memory In the United States, catastrophic events often studies will fnd this book valuable. Additionally, become tools for advancing religious agendas. those teaching courses on religion in the United The 1999 school shootings at Columbine High States should consider assigning The Martyrs of School in Littleton, , are no exception. Ex‐ Columbine since it challenges students to think amining the conservative evangelical response to critically about religion's role in an important Columbine, Justin Watson's The Martyrs of event from their own lifetimes. Columbine begins with two seventeen-year-old Much like his The Christian Coalition, Watson victims of the tragedy, and Rachel centers his discussion on the evangelical commu‐ Scott. Witnesses claimed that the gunmen shot nity's push for restoration.[1] Following Bernall and Scott after the young women afrmed Columbine, evangelicals used the examples of their faith in God. While various sources now Bernall and Scott to declare, "the only hope for question the veracity of these reports, evangeli‐ America is a return to traditional forms of reli‐ cals have continued remembering Bernall and gion as the basis of law and morality" (p. 5). Scott as martyrs. Following the release of the mar‐ Columbine, therefore, was both a direct result of tyrdom accounts, Watson argues that the memory America's "satanic secularism" and a call to re‐ of Bernall and Scott entered into an ongoing evan‐ store the nation's faith in God (p. 27). Chapter 1 gelical operation to restore "traditional" Christian explains that the standard defnition of martyr‐ values in America. Watson makes good use of the dom does not exactly match the cases of Bernall available data. He interweaves his academic in‐ and Scott. Such technicalities, however, were of sights with accounts from newspapers, books little concern to evangelicals after Columbine. written by the parents of the victims, polls, Inter‐ Watson reasons that Bernall and Scott's martyr net sites, public speeches, and police reports. status grew from their unwavering afrmation of Scholars concerned with contemporary evangeli‐ faith in the face of certain death. This high level of H-Net Reviews commitment perfectly exemplifed the evangelical America's secular decline and the need for reli‐ ideal of Christian devotion. Chapter 2 details the gious restoration. But as in Ford's Liberty Valance, many ways that Bernall's last words became im‐ the facts do not match the legend" (p. 148). The mortalized. Websites such as facts of the past, then, mean little to those who www.yesibelieve.com, merchandising parapher‐ want to actualize a Christian future for America. nalia like T-shirts, and her parents' book She Said In making this statement, The Martyrs of Yes: The Unlikely Martyrdom of Cassie Bernall Columbine joins an emerging body of scholarship (1999) became parts of the enormous industry concerned with similar issues of memory. David that extolled Bernall's memory. Watson argues Blight's Beyond the Battlefeld, for example, ar‐ that in all of these locations, "Cassie's last words gues that the rhetoric of the Lost Cause obscured became a rallying cry for the cause of Christ," as the presence of racial oppression that existed in devotees used her stellar example to fortify their the antebellum South.[2] Likewise, Catherine own commitment (p. 30). Chapter 3 examines how Lutz's Homefront explores how World War II politically motivated church and state issues took white America imagined a culture of harmony on center stage in Rachel Scott's martyrdom. Darrell military bases, while in reality, Jim Crow thrived Scott, Rachel's father, began an extensive speak‐ in the armed services.[3] Like Blight and Lutz, ing tour that blamed the secular public schools for Watson states that memory, even an inaccurate his daughter's death. Restoring "the spirit of God" memory, drives ideologies. Also noteworthy is in America's public schools, Darrell Scott has ar‐ Watson's willingness to examine a contemporary gued, would ensure against the possibility of an‐ issue through a rigorous academic lens. Readers other Columbine (p. 78). Chapter 4 draws together should not underestimate the challenges of such the previous discussions and demonstrates how an undertaking. In his preface, Watson says that the memory of Bernall and Scott played into the his methodological aim in writing this book is to post-Columbine "politics of tragedy." For evangeli‐ remain both "a decent human being and a respon‐ cals, Watson asserts, the victims were part of a sible scholar" (p. xii). Watson achieves both ends. larger project to further the "standard program of He acknowledges the powerful pangs of grief that cultural renewal through public afrmations of still haunt the America psyche, while at the same traditional religion and morality" (p. 92). The mar‐ time, his evaluation brings a provocative and in‐ tyrs became central in the campaign against what sightful perspective to this unfortunate event. The evangelicals perceived as the various pernicious book's principal shortcoming is its anemic discus‐ enterprises of modern America. Chapter 5 exam‐ sion of martyrdom. Watson over-relies on Samuel ines the actual data from the shootings to deter‐ Z. Klausner's "Martyrdom" entry in the Encyclope‐ mine if Bernall and Scott were indeed martyrs. dia of Religion. "The Columbine martyr stories are While the details are still hazy, Watson ultimately problematic," Watson asserts, "because they lack shows that there is a large shadow of doubt lin‐ the element of voluntarism and the dimension of gering over the martyrdom accounts. Neverthe‐ group/ideological confict" that Klausner says are less, the challenges have not signifcantly altered essential (p. 21). When considering the Columbine the evangelical memory of Bernall and Scott as martyr stories, however, the truly "problematic" martyrs. element is Klausner's confning defnition. For Taken from John Ford's 1962 flm The Man evangelicals, "voluntarism" and "group/ideological Who Shot Liberty Valance, the subtitle of the confict" are not as important as Bernall and book's conclusion reads, "Print the Legend." "The Scott's defnitive pronouncements of faith during stories of Cassie and Rachel," Watson writes, a moment of crisis. Watson would have done well "mesh seamlessly into the larger narrative of to challenge Klausner by generating a new defni‐

2 H-Net Reviews tion of martyrdom that includes this evangelical perspective. Notes [1]. Justin Watson, The Christian Coalition: Dreams of Restoration, Demands for Recognition (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997). [2]. David W. Blight, Beyond the Battlefeld: Race, Memory, and the American Civil War (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2002). [3]. Catherine Lutz, Homefront: A Military City and the American Twentieth Century (Boston: Beacon Press, 2001).

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Citation: Arthur Remillard. Review of Watson, Justin. The Martyrs of Columbine: Faith and the Politics of Tragedy. H-USA, H-Net Reviews. December, 2003.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=8586

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