Branch Davidians

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Branch Davidians

The Branch Davidians (Students of the Seven Seals) trace their history to the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, one of several successors to the nineteenth-century Millerite movement. The group was founded by Victor Houteff, a Bulgarian immigrant who converted to Adventism in 1919. Ten years later Houteff produced a manifesto, The Shepherd's Rod, accusing the church of blocking Christ's return by scriptural unfaithfulness and materialism. He announced himself a divinely appointed messenger to lead human purification and reveal end-time chronology by unlocking the secrets of the Seven Seals contained in the Book of Revelation. Houteff established the Mount Carmel Center near Waco, Texas, in 1935, and millennial expectations gradually receded. The group dissolved ties with the Adventists in 1942, but virtually all of the few dozen adult members were former Adventists. Houteff served as community leader until his death in 1955; he was succeeded by his wife, Florence, who built group membership to more than a thousand. Florence Houteff predicted apocalyptic events for 1959; following the failure of her prophecy and her admission of error, membership plummeted to a few dozen. Houteff then attempted to dissolve the group and sell the property. However, Davidian Benjamin Roden successfully reconstituted the group and assumed spiritual leadership. Upon his death in 1978, his wife, Lois, assumed leadership, but she became locked in a power struggle with her son George for group control. It was this polarized situation that Vernon Howell (David Koresh), who himself had been an Adventist, entered in 1981 at age twenty-two. He was initially employed as a handyman at Mount Carmel, quickly gained spiritual influence, and in 1983 was named Lois Roden's successor. This triggered another protracted power struggle, including one violent confrontation between George Roden and Koresh; ultimately Koresh prevailed in the late 1980s.

Throughout their history the Davidians retained many of the Adventist traditions (Saturday Sabbath, vegetarianism, millennial expectations). The group was organized as a network of patriarchal families ordered hierarchically. Koresh ascended to leadership at a moment when the group's financial and membership bases had collapsed. He responded by launching recruitment campaigns, initiating business enterprises (including weapons sales), refurbishing the community dwellings, and claiming prophetic status. Membership climbed again to several hundred. In 1990 Vernon Howell changed his name to David Koresh, thereby identifying himself as the spiritual descendent of King David and as a messianic figure carrying out a divinely commissioned errand. According to Koresh's New Light Doctrine, Christ died only for those living prior to his crucifixion. Koresh's mission would allow salvation for subsequent generations by revealing the end-time message in the Seven Seals and creating a new spiritual lineage through sexual unions with disciples. The children created through these unions would erect the House of David and ultimately rule the world.

Implementation of the New Light Doctrine (which led to defections, child abuse allegations, and child custody disputes), along with the gun-related business, resulted in charges of both illegal possession and sale of weapons and child sexual abuse. On February 28, 1993, a firefight erupted between the Davidians and federal ATF agents serving a warrant, during which ten people died and twenty-four others were injured. The FBI then launched a fifty-one-day siege of the compound that ended on April 19, 1993, when an armed assault on the compound resulted in the death of seventy-four Davidians. Several Davidians who survived the conflagration were subsequently convicted on weapons and manslaughter charges. Only a few, small, competing factions of the Davidians now remain. The validity of the legal charges and the jurisdiction of the government agencies involved in the confrontation with the Davidians remain contested, and this episode has been linked to increased militancy among Christian militia groups and specifically to the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building.

Bibliography

Anthony, Dick, and Thomas Robbins. "Religious Totalism, Exemplary Dualism, and the Waco Tragedy." In Millennium, Messiahs, and Mayhem, edited by Thomas Robbins and Susan Palmer. 1997.

Tabor, James, and Eugene Gallagher. Why Waco? Cultsand the Battle for Religious Freedom in America. 1995.

Wright, Stuart. Armageddon in Waco: Critical Perspectiveson the Branch Davidian Conflict. 1995.

David G. Bromley

Contemporary American Religion