c. 1999 Religion News Service

(Dale Hanson Bourke is publisher of RNS.)

ORLANDO, Fla. _ For the past several years, Christian messages aimed at teens have been deliberately user-friendly.

Teen Bibles shed the somber black and burgundy for splashes of color and names like”The Message”or”Quest.” T-shirts went from depicting the gruesome crucifixion scenes to imitating popular logos, such as samples displayed this week at the Christian Booksellers Association convention in Orlando featuring a gray background, red and white stripes and blockletters for”Tommy Hellfighter.” Even the now passe”WWJD”bracelets let teens quietly proclaim their faith to others without putting themselves on the line.

But the times they are a changin’. The shootings at Columbine High School galvanized the nation around the issues of teen violence. And the death of Cassie Bernall _ who reportedly was asked if she believed in God and then was shot when she answered”yes”_ has emboldened Christian teens to come out of the closet and go public with their faith.

On Tuesday (July 13) Word Publishing announced plans to distribute”She Said Yes: The Unlikely Martyrdom of Cassie Bernall,”a book written by her mother, Misty Bernall, and to be published by Plough in early September.

Gaining even more attention at the trade show was the just released book”Jesus Freaks”(Albury), a book written by the popular band DC Talk and based on the nearly forgotten John Foxe’s”Book of Martyrs,”written by the English cleric in 1559 in praise of Protestant martyrs.

Teaming up with The Voice of the Martyrs ministry, DC Talk hopes to remind teens of the”rich history of people giving their lives for their faith,”according to Toby McKeehan of the group.

The book begins with the story of Cassie Bernall and continues with stories of well-known figures like William Tyndale, who was imprisoned and strangled for translating the Bible into English. In between are stories of lesser known figures in countries like Bangladesh, Cuba and Armenia.

The book is not user friendly. The stories are sometimes gruesome and frightening. But, McKeehan says,”Extreme is `in’ with this generation. Teens face all kinds of extremes in their lives. We can’t candy-coat the truth.” The title of the book is the same as DC Talk’s popular song that burst onto the Christian music scene a few years ago with an assaulting, hard-edged sound and challenging lyrics:”What will people think when they hear that I’m a Jesus Freak? … I don’t really care, what else can I say, There ain’t no disguising the truth.””We were amazed by the reaction to that song,”said Michael Tait, another member of the band.”It wasn’t like anything we’d ever seen before.

It started a movement. This is a new kind of Jesus Freak. We’re talking about kids who are willing to be freaks for their faith. It was a negative label in the ’60s, but now it’s a positive.” Although the book was well under way before the shootings at Columbine High, the group met with family members of those shot as well as survivors and felt that the story of Cassie Bernall fit in perfectly as an example of a present-day martyr.”We didn’t want to exploit her story, but we were assured by the survivors that it would be a blessing and an encouragement to have her included with the others,”says McKeehan.

Both McKeehan and Tait said that they see many teens expressing a new commitment to”stand up and be counted”for their faith. And recognizing that they are role models, they wanted to use their popularity to bring attention to those who have given their lives for what they believed.”It’s hard to be different,”says Tait.”But courage often comes from strong role models.” Cassie Bernall’s death may have stirred something in teens that all of the friendly messages missed. Instead of wanting to fit in, Christian teens seem to rally around the idea of being Jesus Freaks. Perhaps they have simply been waiting for a challenge that matched the other extremes in their lives.

DEA END BOURKE