ELCA NEWS SERVICE

April 7, 2009  

Ten Years Later, Lutherans Remember Columbine
09-084-SH

     CHICAGO (ELCA) -- Anne Marie Hochhalter stepped outside of
her Colorado high school in 1999 just as two seniors armed with
guns began shooting. They killed 12 students and a teacher at
Littleton's Columbine High School before killing themselves.
     Many others were injured, including Hochhalter, who was left
paralyzed. In the aftermath, her mother's long struggle with
depression intensified. Six months after the shootings, Carla
Hochhalter walked into a pawnshop, asked to see a revolver, then
shot and killed herself.
     "After my mom died we stopped going to church," Anne Marie
Hochhalter, 27, told the ELCA News Service. "I was angry with God
because of what happened. I didn't understand what God was
about."
     At the time, the Hochhalters attended Christ Lutheran
Church, Highlands Ranch, nine miles from the suburban Denver
school. The congregation is part of the Evangelical Lutheran
Church in America (ELCA).
     The school tragedy aftermath brought an endless cycle of
debilitating trauma and grief to countless families. Still, time
marched on. Students graduated from high school, then college.
Families moved in and out of suburbia. Pastors came and went.
     The 10th anniversary -- April 20 -- is a measure of how much
has changed. It falls a few days after Easter, when Christians
celebrate their belief in Jesus' resurrection.
 For Christians, Easter always lies on the other end of
suffering.
     "For me, Jesus was taking a bullet that day," said the Rev.
David Jensen, pastor at Christ Lutheran in 1999. "Jesus was with
our kids. He was not punishing this culture, but suffering with
this culture. Belief in resurrection means we cannot stop at our
wounds."
     Jensen left the ELCA in 2004. Several church members left,
too. Most there now weren't members a decade ago, said the Rev.
Tom Shelly, Christ Lutheran's current pastor.
     "No one really talks about Columbine in the sense of a
firsthand memory," Shelly said. "We're still in recovery mode
from the split. We're also preparing for our 25th anniversary in
2010. It's kind of a looking ahead and survival mode."
     The Rev. Don Marxhausen led Littleton's St. Philip Lutheran
Church in 1999. After the massacre, he remained an outspoken
presence in the media. He also officiated at the funeral for
Dylan Klebold, one of the Columbine shooters. Conflict erupted in
the congregation, and he left the following year.
     "Whenever there's trauma, usually pastors wind up leaving,"
said Marxhausen, 68, now serving in Idaho Springs, Colo. "As time
passes you start getting perspective. My message is that God
raises us up."
     When the Rev. Nathan Doerr arrived at St. Philip in 2003, he
said the congregation still struggled with grief management.
     "Initially there was a sense that 'you've not been through
my suffering,'" he said. "It was an attitude of 'nobody knows the
trouble I've seen.'"
     Church members continue to work on healthy ways of grieving,
including how suffering can make them more compassionate to
others' pain.
     "Tragedy now drives us deeper into the arms of God rather
than driving us apart," Doerr said. "It's shaped us in ways that
we can be sensitive to how God brings life out of death."
     Doerr said the murders are also becoming "more of a distant
piece" in the life of the congregation. "The Columbine tragedy is
still part of our life, but doesn't continue on a daily basis to
control or direct our ministry," he said.
     Hochhalter said it took her a long time to accept her losses
through the eyes of faith. "When Columbine happened, I didn't
believe in God," she said. "I was a selfish teenager. I wanted to
sleep in on Sunday mornings. My mom always had us go to church.
Her faith was strong."
     Most students at Hochhalter's church attended a different
high school.
     "I didn't feel connected at church," Hochhalter said. "At
the same time, I will never forget the love of that church after
mom died. That church was there for us."
     She eventually moved 30 miles away to Westminster, earned a
college degree in business and certification as a court-appointed
advocate for children. But the most important change is that she
"opened her heart to Jesus," she said.
     "I kept thinking about my mom and how, if I don't believe in
God, that means there's no heaven and she's just in the ground,"
Hochhalter said. "I
didn't understand what Christianity was all about. Then a friend
invited me to her church. She was an absolute gift. She answered
my questions so patiently."
     With faith, her perspective on suffering changed.
     "God doesn't cause suffering. He suffers with us," said
Hochhalter, who now attends a nondenominational church. "I'm
certain God cried over Columbine. I'm certain he cried along with
me when mom died."

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