Famed American Literary Magazine Publishes Article on Adventists
by Monte Sahlin
By AT News Team, March 26, 2014
An in-depth feature article about the tragic 1993 confrontation between an Adventist cult and Federal police in Waco, Texas, has been published this week by The New Yorker, perhaps the most famous and widely-read literary magazine in the United States. Entitled "Sacred and Profane: How not to negotiate with believers," it is the first major article in the issue dated March 31 which is being delivered by the post office this week.
The major focus of the article is the miscalculations of the Federal agents who initially attempted to serve a search warrant regarding the illegal sale of firearms by the Branch Davidian Seventh-day Adventists which devolved into a long standoff, repeated negotiations by telephone and eventually a showdown that left 73 dead, including 25 children. It was the largest loss of civilian lives in a Federal raid in more than a century.
Malcom Gladwell, a New Yorker staff writer, has clearly read the many books that have been published about the Waco tragedy, including scholarly collections and the memoirs of survivors and family members. He argues that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents in charge misunderstood the nature of the Branch Davidian cult and the relationship that its members had with their leader, David Koresh.
"The FBI … believed the Branch Davidians were dangerously in the thrall of Koresh; it feared a catastrophic act like the mass suicide, in 1978, in Guyana, of the cult leader Jim Jones and his followers in the People's Temple," Gladwell writers. "But the Davidians weren't like the People's Temple." Based on oral history research, "religious studies scholar Catherine Wessinger … maintains that the People's Temple was an example of the 'fragile' subset of millennial groups: defensive and unstable, and willing to initiate great violence in response to an outside threat."
"The Branch Davidians, however, were far from fragile. They engaged freely and happily with the world around them. [A group member] went to California periodically to work for an audiotape-dubbing company and make money. Other Davidians started small businesses around Waco. Wayne Martin, a prominent member of the [group], was a Harvard Law School graduate with a legal practice in town." Also they ran a small business selling guns and David Koresh would take a few of the young men into town with him on Saturday nights to play rock music in clubs and drink beer.
What the FBI misunderstood about the Branch Davidians, a misperception that proved to be disastrous, was the fact that religious beliefs, no matter how out of line with conventional common sense, "were matters of principle for those within" the religion. "From the movement's beginning, the point of being a Davidian was to be different. … No one became a Branch Davidian if he required the comfort of religious orthodoxy." The FBI failed miserably in this situation because they "dismissed the religious beliefs of the Davidians" and thought "Koresh was a sociopath and his followers were hostages."
The content and character of religious faith must be taken more seriously in confrontations between the cultural mainstream and minority religious communities, the article argues. "The Branch Davidians belonged to the religious tradition that sees Christ's return to earth and the establishment of a divine Kingdom as imminent." They emerged from the Seventh-day Adventist denomination, and "of all mainstream contemporary American churches … the Seventh-Day Adventists have the strongest millennial tradition … formed by followers of the early-nineteenth-century evangelist William Miller."
Koresh did not behave like a manipulative, psychotic cult leader, the writer argues. "He didn't preach. He threw out theories and ideas, inviting argument and discussion." It was the power of Bible study and the new ideas that emerged which animated the group and their refusal to surrender to the Federal agents was in part because of what they believed about end-time events and in part because of the massive show of force that the Feds assembled. A total of 899 Federal agents, Texas Rangers, U.S. Army, National Guard, sheriff's deputies and local police were involved, including two Abrams tanks, 10 Bradley tanks and four combat-engineering vehicles.
The group had spent much time studying Revelation 6 where "seven seals" are described and "the Lamb" opened the seals and revealed the future of God's people. Many were convinced that Koresh was "the Lamb" because he had been able to show them an understanding of the mystifying passage. Even his most troubling behavior, taking on "spiritual wives" from among the spouses and daughters of the group, some as young as 12 years of age, was connected in their thinking to Psalm 45 which "speaks of a great king, anointed by God, who marries many princesses and creates a mighty dynasty that will one day command the world."
"When Bible study is cut loose from the norms of rational thinking and scientific fact it can form the basis for dangerous ideology," an Adventist theologian told Adventist Today. "What happened with the Branch Davidians is a clear example of this, but the mishandling of the situation by the authorities obscures the reality and the lessons that we need to learn. That can cause sympathy for the underdog and cause honest believers to lose sight of the fact that the Word of God must be balanced with reason, as James White advocated in the early years of the Sabbath-keeping Adventists."
It is unclear how this article will be received either among Adventists or the larger world. Adventist Today will report future developments as they surface.
Psalm 45 speaks of many women being "among your honored women," but of only one princess. I suppose honored women could, in that time, have been taken to mean concubines…?? But it would be stretching the text. I still think Koresh's mental health was questionable at best.
I obviously have not yet read the piece in question. But I have been arguing the same thesis ever since the day after the shoot out happened. The FBI totally blew it despite the fact that they contacted the SDA church's BRI even sooner than I did. However, I have already made my case in AT's 20th year anniversary blog on this tragic event.
Fortunately I’m old enough to remember this. The Branch Davidians were never known contemporaneously as “Branch Davidian Seventh-day Adventists;” nor did they refer to themselves by that name.
It is sadly unsurprising that revisionism rules.
I recall well the fellows who used to sneak into the dorm at PUC attempting to get us
to listen to "shepherd's rod" ideas. This would have been around 1958 or 59. There
was little doubt at the time that they were obsessive extremists. I don't remember
exactly what they called themselves, maybe something like "SDA Reform Movement."
One can find a wiki entry for "Davidian Seventh-day Adventists," but I wonder what
names they themselves used. If I understand correctly, they regarded themselves as
the "true" Seventh-day Adventists.
I wish whoever writes the article headlines would be more careful to insure that their words reflect the content of the article. The story in New Yorker Magazine was about the Branch Davidians, who were described as an offshoot of an offshoot from the Adventist church. That's all the more involvement the church had in the story, so saying the article was about the church was inaccurate and misleading.
An unnamed Seventh-day Adventist theologian is quoted above as describing the Branch Dividian confligration with these words: "When Bible study is cut loose from the norms of rational thinking and scientific fact it can form the basis for dangerous ideology,"
Is it rehetorical to ask, just how much 'rational thinking and scientific fact' is present in the Gospel of Jesus? With regard to Seventh-day Adventism, in the list of 28 fundamental beliefs of the Seventh-day Adventist church, how many would survive if their inclusion in the list required some measure of "rational thinking and scientific fact"?
Is not the comfort of those suffering from the fear of death, wherever it is found, neither rational nor scientific, but rather sensed in the context of faith?
I certainly find no room whatsoever to suggest that Branch Dividians were just irrational and unscientific and therefore somehow doomed to suffer at their own trembling hands. And surely appealing to rationality and scientific thought to justify the assault on the compound utterly failed those charged with managing this situation.
The story of the Samaritan may be a story of understanding one another and incorporating socially and spiritually with people who have spiritual needs that are not met by mere beliefs. This feels like a far more compelling topic than disassociating ourselves as a church, or worse, as individuals from the Branch Dividians.
I did read the New Yorker article. It was very good.
It hardly mentions the SDA Church except to point out that Koresh and the Branch Davidians were too extreme for us. The only other point made that was made was far as Millenist religious movements go, other Christians, such as Jim Jones' group, have nothing on Adventists – which is broadly described to include the Branch Davidians.
This was actually presented in a good way in the article. For example, it was pointed out that Koresh's group felt comfortable having a known FBI spy in their group, because they were confident that their message might convince the agent ultimately. Or that many of Koresh's group did actually have jobs on the outside, and didn't need to be cloistered all the time from the world, for fear of adherants running away.
The focus on the article was also to point out that Koresh did not actually have the level of total control over his followers as many outsiders think. And he did have a level of rationality – but only if you understand the religious mindset of him and his followers.
As said above, basically the FBI screwed up. Two theologians were able to convince Koresh, using his own language of religion, that it didn't have to end in an apocalyptic shoot out. Koresh had agreed to 'fullfil the prophecy' about the seals by writing his memoirs, but the FBI wouldn't wait any longer – and you know what happened.
I agree with those who find the deliberate conflation of Seventh Day Adventists with generic adventists in this headline to be highly misleading and offensive. The author of the fine article in The New Yorker didn't seem to think his aritcle was about Adventists at all. The last time the AToday news team put out an article about Waco, on the 20th anniversary of the tragedy, I recall they also used "Adventist" in the headline, and took flak for it. The defense, as I recall, was that "scholars" use the term adventists more generically than those of us who belong to the SDA form of adventism. I rejected that explanation then and I reject it now. The intended audience for this headline is not scholarly historians of obscure 19th and 20th Century advent sects. The intended audience is Seventh Day Adventists, who are being deceptively led to think that The New Yorker published a story about Seventh Day Adventists, or at least some identifiable denomination labeled Adventist. This is sloppy journalism at best. But more probably, since the writer of this feature presumably read the article, it is intentionally misleading.
Very well said! (That’s what I meant.)