Columbine victim's dad says youth desire truth

JOHN FORTMEYER CNNW publisher
NEWBERG --

Rachel Scott's commitment to Christ persisted all the way to her death from gunfire. America's youth have a similar thirst for the truths of God that the nation must not quench, her father told a prayer breakfast here last month.

I believe with all my heart that the two keys to the new millennium are young people and prayer, Darrell Scott said to hundreds of people attending the 14th annual Newberg-Dundee Mayor's Prayer Breakfast on George Fox University's Newberg campus.

As the father of a slain Columbine High School student, Scott travels the nation proclaiming that last year's mass shooting in Littleton, Colo., was far more than a major headline gripping the nation's attention.The circumstances surrounding the shooting, which his son Craig survived, serve as a wake-up call by God to the nation, Scott said.

It would take me literally three nights to tell you all the stories of spiritual preparation for Columbine, he said. Even though there was great evil there, a great tragedy, it was a spiritual event.

The televised funeral for his daughter drew CNN's biggest audience ever, Scott said. Since then, his own life's goals have drastically changed and he now criss-crosses the nation sharing his perspective on the Columbine shooting. Scott had to quickly leave the Newberg campus after his talk to catch a flight to Washington, D.C., where he was scheduled the next day to address tens of thousands of young people on the Capitol Mall. In the past year he has spoken to political leaders at the highest levels, including the president, and to such prominent names as singer Elton John and TV newswoman Jane Pauley.

God has opened more doors than I could possibly walk through, he said.

Scott blasted the steady erosion of spiritual values he said has occurred since prayer was eliminated from the nation's public schools in the early 1960s. He called for a restoration of the focus on God that he saidsustained the nation through its founding and for nearly two centuries.

Our young people have been stripped of their spiritual heritage, he said. We are perverting history to our youth, eliminating anything that has to do with God, spirituality or religion. Who gave us the right, in my generation, to remove something our nation had for 170 years? Scott shared excerpts from his daughter's diary that reflected her willingness to be used of God, and the sense of urgency that she felt.

I want you to use me to reach the unreached, one prayer in her diary stated.

Through prayer, she affected her high school, not knowing she was also going to be affecting the nation and the world, Scott said.

Even though Rachel died in the shooting, God was present, Scott said. God was with my daughter at Columbine, he said. He never left her or forsook her.

Scott said he and others this month will announce Chain Reaction, a new national initiative to see the gospel message communicated to America's young people.

I see an integrity in this next generation, he said. There are young people who want answers, want truth and want to make a difference, he said.

Scott received a standing ovation from the breakfast crowd.