David Koresh
1959-1993
Cult leader
Davidian Foundations
Vernon Wayne Howell was born on 17 August 1959. In 1968 he and his mother joined the Seventh-Day Adventist Church (established in 1863). Adventists consider themselves to be the true people of God, awaiting Christ's imminent return and attempting to understand all parts of the Bible that foreshadowed that return. Dissatisfied with their teachings, Howell eventually moved on to the Branch Davidians. An energetic and charismatic man, he taught that the Seven Seals of Rev. 6 provide the only hope for salvation. By 1985 he came to believe that he was God's prophet chosen to deliver the Adventists from error, a doctrine they rejected. This increased Howell's sense of alienation. He saw himself as a modern Cyrus the Great, the Persian king who defeated Babylon and is called God's Messiah in Isaiah 45:1. Because he was able to explain the Seals, and Rev. 5 says that only the Lamb of God, who is Christ, can explain them, Howell eventually claimed to be the Christ-Lamb. He legally changed his name to David Koresh: "Koresh" is the Hebrew form of "Cyrus," and David, like Cyrus, is referred to as "Messiah" (2 Sam. 22:51, 23:1).
Religious Offshoot
In the 1930s Adventist teacher Victor T. Houteff created The Shepherd's Rod, a splinter group, and moved them to Waco, Texas. There he began calling the group the "Davidian Seventh Day
Adventists." In 1962 a new prophetic figure, Ben Roden, changed the name to Branch Davidian Seventh Day Adventists as a result of a personal revelation. Several communities were established. After Roden's death his widow, Lois, assumed leadership. She was impressed by Koresh, a young man who joined the movement in 1981, and established him in the hierarchy so that when she died he would eventually take control of that group. Like Roden and Houteff before him, Koresh stressed personal purity for his followers (this included dietary as well as sexual matters). As the Lamb, however, Koresh was exempt from these strictures. He said his special status gave him the obligation to father a holy race and to that end he "married" many times; some of his "brides" were as young as twelve. By late 1992 government agencies began investigating the situation, partly at the instigation of noncustodial parents who were not part of the group. Koresh also taught that Christ's triumphant return was delayed because his true people—the Davidians—were impure and independent, unwilling to submit, and that (according to the Fifth Seal in Rev. 6:9-11) they must be willing to accept the martyrdom required before Christ's return in victory.
The Raid and the Siege
The Davidians began to stockpile guns in anticipation of the persecution they were sure was coming. When the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) began investigating them, it seemed like the fulfillment of Koresh's prophecies. On 28 February 1993, ATF agents attempted to raid the compound. Koresh had been tipped off in advance, and the Davidians fired on the federal agents; four were killed and sixteen wounded, but they did not gain access to the compound. Koresh said five of his people were killed. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was called in and a fifty-one-day siege began. During the standoff the FBI tried to force the Davidians out of the compound—shining bright lights, playing loud music, and cutting off their electricity and water. This treatment, of course, seemed to confirm to those inside that they were the persecuted Remnant of God. As this ordeal was happening, Koresh continued to speak with the FBI, give interviews, and communicate with biblical scholars. He agreed to write his interpretation of the Seven Seals of Revelation, after which he would surrender, but he completed only an introduction and an explanation of the First Seal. Whether his pledge to surrender was genuine continued to be a matter of some debate at the end of the decade.
Apocalypse
The FBI, holding Koresh responsible for the deaths of four ATF agents and feeling pressure to bring the standoff to an end, moved in on Sunday, 19 April 1993. After knocking holes in the main camp-ground building with a specially equipped armored personnel carrier, FBI agents launched tear gas canisters inside. Whether the Davidians themselves set the fire that destroyed the campground or whether the canisters—some of which were incendiary—did, remains a fiercely debated issue at the end of the decade. There were approximately eighty casualties from the fire, all Davidians. Because of the incredible heat of the fire and the different claims made by Koresh to the FBI and by escaping Davidians as to how many people were in the compound that day, it may never be known exactly how many died. Nearly a quarter were children: thirteen of the dead, including Koresh, had been shot. Like Jesus at his death, Koresh was just thirty-three years old. At the end of the decade it still remained unclear whether the fire was set accidentally by flames from the tear gas canisters or whether they were intentionally set on orders from Koresh himself in a suicide pact similar to that of Jim Jones and the People's Temple in Guyana, in 1978. The nine Davidians who escaped the fire denied that there was any such pact. The FBI had considered the possibility that the group might commit suicide rather than surrender, but they counted on the Davidians' instinct to protect their children being stronger than their desire for martyrdom. Had they understood apocalyptic groups like the Davidians in general and the book of Revelation in particular, they should have known better: for people who believe that an attacking group are agents of Satan, surrendering children to them is not the most loving thing to do.
Aftereffects
Some groups with no affinity for Koresh's theology were disturbed by the actions of the government against people who were trying to live according to their own beliefs; the fact that the possession of weaponry helped lead to the original raid alarmed ardent supporters of the Second Amendment as well. A Justice Department probe in 1993 blamed Koresh for the deaths and found no evidence that the FBI had caused the fire. Nonetheless, in a phenomenon reminiscent of the reaction to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, there were many suggestions in print and on the Internet that what happened at Waco was the result of a government conspiracy. Links were made between Waco and the 1992 incident at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in which Christian white separatist Vicki Weaver and her son Sam were killed during a nine-day standoff with the FBI. On the second anniversary of the Waco fire the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was blown up, killing 168 people, partially in protest of the governmental action against the Branch Davidians. In August of 1999 U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno called for a review of the evidence from Waco after previously unseen FBI tapes indicated that the FBI fired two incendiary grenades at the compound the morning of the 19 April raid.
Sources:
Nancy Gibbs, "Fire Storm in Waco," Time, 141 (3 May 1993): 29-43.
David Koresh, The Decoded Message of the Seven Seals of the Book of Revelation (Green Forest, Ark.: Stewart Waterhouse, 1993).
James D. Tabor, "Apocalypse at Waco," Bible Review, 9 (October 1993): 24-33.
