New Book About Waco Reopens Questions

By Loren Seibold

When the Waco siege happened, I was a Seventh-day Adventist pastor studying in a Presbyterian seminary. I remember my embarrassment at the questions in class the day it happened. I did what the rest of the Seventh-day Adventist church did: denied that the Branch Davidian had anything to do with us—even though they were a historical offshoot of the church, most of them ex or current Seventh-day Adventists, and studied the same prophecies and prophet (Ellen G. White) that we did.

Clive Doyle was one of the few believers to escape the fire in the Waco compound. He’s now written a new book called Journey to Waco. “If people read this account, they will at least gain a different perspective on who David Koresh was, where he was coming from, who we were, and why we believe the way we do,” he says. “Most people think ‘cult’ about us and think we are people who were brainwashed and deceived. They think our church members don’t know what they’re doing or where they’re going. Hopefully, my story can open their eyes.”

Indeed, most people do think cult. In a review in The New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell brings together the literature on the subject to show that almost no one tried to understand Koresh or why people were in the compound. The ATF prepared a response for bank robbers, when they were dealing with quiet, principled Bible students. The besiegers mishandled every step of the process. Whatever paranoia the group had extracted from Scripture (it was centered around an interpretation of Revelation's 5th seal) the ATF’s ham-handed raid reinforced.

Koresh was, to be sure, an odd yet charismatic character, and his taking young spiritual brides was repugnant. But it was all based on Scriptural explanations that most of the compound had accepted. As another Branch Davidianist, Steve Schneider, said, “All of these places talk about a man in the last days that’s a sinner. He can do one thing, open up the words of the book, open up the Seven Seals. Can’t do any miracles, doesn’t raise the dead, heal the sick, isn’t a psychic but . . . if people have questions about life and death, eternal life, no matter what the question is, he will show it in context from the book.” And Koresh could, at least to the satisfaction of his followers.

Conspicuously absent from any attempt to solve the standoff was the Seventh-day Adventist church, its theologians and leaders. At the time, the denomination, always nervous about being perceived as a cult, denied any connection to the Branch Davidian. The theologian who stepped in to try to solve the problem by looking at it through the cultists’ eyes was James Tabor of the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. He engaged Koresh on his own terms, Koresh even implying he'd turn himself in when his study of Revelation with Tabor was complete. Writes Gladwell, “Tabor and Arnold made a tape—a long, technical discussion of an alternative reading of Revelation—aired it on the radio, and sent it to Koresh. Koresh listened and was persuaded. He had been called a liar, a child molester, a con man, and a phony messiah. He had been invited to treat his children like bargaining chips and his followers like hostages. But now someone was taking his beliefs seriously.”

But the ATF refused to wait even a few days.

Even if you don’t read the book (and much of it is self-serving, as Doyle is still a believer), do read “Sacred and Profane” by Gladwell. It’s a mind-bending exploration of why we don't listen to people who are different from us.

Comments

[Steven Siciliano]

This is the first I'm hearing of the book by the ex-follower of Koresh, so obviously I haven't read it and therefore cannot critique whatever points he may make. But if his intention as quoted in this article is to lend even a modicum of credibility and legitimacy to Koresh's views, I would hasten to relate my experience on the topic.

One afternoon in the late 1980's one of my friends invited me to attend a bible study with a "special" visiting speaker in someone's home in an East Bay suburb of San Francisco. The speaker was purported to be a great scholar of prophecy whose name at the time was Vernon Howell who, as you know, would later change his name to David Koresh and make infamous headlines.

I estimate that about a dozen people attended that study session, and stayed for anywhere from one and a half to three hours or more, depending on each individual's ability to endure incoherent rambling and occasional verbal abuse from Howell. I too was young and inexperienced at the time to recognize the potential danger of a guy like that and so, during my two hours, there I refrained from contributing much but just listened to what he was saying. Or more accurately I should say, I tried to figure out what he was saying because, even after two hours I had not yet been able to identify one clear or comprehensible point he was making. That's how discombobulated and disconnected his presentation was. So I finally ran out of patience and courtesy too and went home, never imagining what would transpire with his group some months later. At the time I just thought he was completely off his rocker.

The point I am making here is this. From the quote cited in this article it seems as if Doyle's intention in writing the book is to defend -- at least to an extent -- the plausibility of Koresh's teaching, and his followers' justification for following him. And I suppose he will cite all kinds of explanations and details in his attempt to do that, none of which I have known or read as of this time. But since my brief, one-time experience clearly demonstrated to me that Koresh was conclusively disordered in his thinking I felt it was important to make my observation public here.

Now, in regard to the main point of this article, the relationship of the SDA church to both the Branch Davidians and the affair in Waco, I want to make it clear that I am not addressing that concern, though it is valid.