Branch Davidians

The Branch Davidians, a religious sect in the United States based on Christianity, were led by a charismatic prophet known by his assumed name, David Koresh. In the wake of the 1978 mass murder – suicide in Jonestown, the general public of the United States and beyond remained skeptical of the structure and tactics of new religious movements. Such skepticism was given warrant just over a decade later, in 1993, when most of the Branch Davidian sect of Waco, Texas, were killed in a raging inferno after a standoff with U.S. law enforcement agencies. The 1990s were, in fact, marked by a number of violent confrontations and dramatic dénouements, including the 1995 Aum Shinrikyô sarin-gas attack on the Tokyo subway, the 1997 Heaven's Gate mass suicide, and the Order of the Solar Temple multiple murder-suicides of 1994, 1995, and 1997. As incidents such as these became more pronounced within a global context, the deadly confrontation in Waco reaffirmed the growing presence of religious violence around the world.

The Branch Davidians began as a splinter sect of the Davidian Seventh-Day Adventists in 1955. The term Branch refers to the “new name” of Jesus Christ and Davidian refers to the Davidic kingdom. The founder of this sect, Benjamin L. Roden, settled just outside Waco, Texas. In 1984, 7 years after Roden's death, a young Vernon Wayne Howell split the movement once again, forming the Davidian Branch Davidian Seventh-Day Adventists, commonly known simply as the Branch Davidians.

After a brief period of excommunication, Howell returned to the Waco site in 1990 and changed his name to David Koresh—a name that was believed to evoke references to the kings David and Cyrus of the Bible. In addition to his focus on the Book of Revelation, Koresh began to preach about the “Seven Seals” and his role as the “Lamb” that would open them. Garnering a considerable following, Koresh began to barricade his group within a compound known as Mt. Carmel to await the Apocalypse, which would begin with what Koresh believed to be a confrontation with the U.S. government.

In what would seem to be a fulfilled prophecy by Koresh, the Branch Davidians underwent a violent [Page 158]encounter in 1993 with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATF) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). On February 28, 1993, BATF raided the Mt. Carmel compound, which led to a 5-week standoff between the Branch Davidians and the combined forces of the BATF and the FBI. The standoff ended in a blazing inferno on April 19, 1993, which was allegedly initiated by federal agents firing a tear gas projectile into the compound—a controversial theory that is disputed by the U.S. government. In the end, a total of 82 members of the Branch Davidians and four BATF agents were killed in the fighting.