1999 year in review

Tragedy and faithfulness made headlines: Columbine High School … 12 murdered … Cassie Bernall, Rachel Scott, and others did not back down from their faith when looking down a gun barrel. Wedgwood Baptist Church … seven murdered … Jeremiah Nietz, Marybeth Talley, and others stood firm in their faith and protected others. Amtrak derailment in Bourbonnais, Illinois … Christian teenagers helped passengers out of the wreckage before the train burst into flames. American Airlines crash in Little Rock, Arkansas … a Christian college student assisted a burn victim out of the aircraft before succumbing to smoke. Big names made news on the scandal scene, rode the ups and downs of the political scene, and left the sports scene: Clinton … Lewinsky … Starr … Hyde … Graham … Bush … McCain … Dole … Forbes … Bauer … Keyes … Hatch … Quayle … Gore … Bradley … Buchanan … Trump … Beatty … Giuliani … Ventura … Jordan … Gretzky … Elway … Graf. The mainline church continued its decline and some Christian political conservatives fell into discord, disunity, and disarray, even as Christian evangelism bore fruit worldwide, despite some ministers behaving badly. 1999 saw continuing crises and troubles from A to Y2K: Abortion … Beanie Babies … Chechnya … Day trading … Espionage … Floods … Gambling … Hurricanes … Impeachment … Jordan … Kosovo … Lawsuits … Murder … Netanyahu … Obnoxious celebrities … Pokémon … Quakes … Rape … Same-sex marriage … Terrorism … Umpires (on strike instead of calling strikes) … Violence … World Wide Web … Xenophobia … and Y2K. And those who passed from the scene: Siskel … Blackmun … Kubrick … DiMaggio … Funt … Silverstein … Sarazen … Torme … Payton … Puzo … Gorbachev … Kennedy … Khan … Ehrlichman … Exner … Chamberlain … Chafee … Stewart … Van Kampen … Heller … and 1.3 million unborn children.