David Koresh and Waco

David Koresh and Waco

We just got our New Yorker magazine (March 31) today, (yeah, there are a few liberals in Nevada) and found an article by Malcolm Gladwell entitled “Sacred and Profane”. It is the best, most comprehensive story of the Branch Davidians and the assault in Waco of their small group of fervent believers I have read yet.

I feel that Mr Gladwell might have been a Seventh-day Adventist at some time in his life, although I don’t know that. But he understands far better than most people do the thought processes of Adventists and their worship of the Bible as the written Word of God. They believe every word literally, and study to make sense of contradictory texts, giving no credence at all to the idea that the Bible is not one book, but many books written by different people at different times with wildly varying messages.

David Koresh studied the Bible just like other Adventists, except he did it longer and more diligently than just about any others did. He also studied the writings of the Adventist prophet Ellen G. White, and was extensively familiar with every thing she had written, even those older books that were no longer in print because their Victorian and Puritanical messages were becoming an embarrassment to the modern church. In every case where Koresh found himself in a debate with an Adventist preacher, he won handily, and usually took members from that preacher’s flock for his own.

Those who left the church to follow Koresh were also the most devout, diligent Bible studiers of the church. They were well educated and indoctrinated in the Seventh-day Adventist beliefs, and enjoyed studying the Bible for hours every day. The popular belief is that Koresh forced them to listen to him give Bible studies, but the testimony of Clive Doyle, a survivor of the last assault, is that they all begged Koresh for more, and that Koresh even complained once that he wished they would do their own Bible studying.

Unwittingly, the FBI tactics were following and confirming Koresh’s interpretation of the “seven seals” prophecy in Revelation, Chapter 6. In the words of the article:
    “...Mount Carmel’s adherents thought they were living through the  “fifth seal” --- a late stage in   the end of time, during which believers are asked to suffer through a round of bloodshed, to “wait a little season,” and then to suffer a second round.”
    “This was why the Davidians wouldn’t leave. They had been through the first round of violence, with the initial A.T.F. raid. Now they were doing as they believed the Bible compelled them to do --- waiting.”

When the FBI negotiators threatened the people inside the compound with violence if they didn’t come out, they thought they were making a reasonable demand. They didn’t know they were promising the Davidians exactly what the Bible predicted. Koresh and his followers were convinced that if they just held true to God’s word they would wake up on that Great Judgement Day standing before God as righteous martyrs for His sake.

You must read the article --- I don’t have space or permission to reprint it here. Even better, you could read the book that is the inspiration for the article, “A Journey to Waco” by Clive Doyle. Another book worth reading is the book “Learning Lessons from Waco” by Jayne Docherty, which describes the futility of negotiating with true believers as you might with bank robbers.

I want to expand on the mistaken belief that the Bible is one inerrant book. That belief is making an idol of a bunch of paper and ink wrapped in the skin of an animal. Only God is inerrant and perfect. Even Jesus did not take the Old Testament literally. (To state the obvious, there was no New Testament when Jesus walked the earth.)

In Matthew 5:38, Jesus quotes Leviticus 24:20. Then he immediately contradicts that text. He says not to follow that text which commands “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth” but do NOT avenge the attack, and respond by allowing another attack with no resistance (turn the other cheek).

In Matthew 5:43 he quotes Leviticus again, chapter 19, verse 18 which says to love your neighbor and hate your enemy.  Then he says, “but I say unto you” love your enemy. Another direct contradiction. I think Jesus had a  real problem with Leviticus.

In John 8:3-11 we find Jesus changing the punishment for adultery. In Leviticus 20:10 the punishment for adultery is death, but Jesus just said, “Go and sin no more.” My guess is if we threw out the whole book of Leviticus, Jesus wouldn’t mind much.

In Matthew 5:31,32 Jesus changes the laws on divorce found in Deuteronomy 24:1, tightening them up a bit. That was one of the few times he made it stricter. Three times he made Sabbath keeping easier by allowing a man to take up his bed and carry it on the Sabbath, explained it was OK to get your cow out of a ditch on the Sabbath, and allowed his disciples to thresh grain by hand to satisfy their hunger on the Sabbath.

Jesus never told anyone to take every text literally or that scripture is without error. That idea was proposed hundreds of years after Jesus died. To worship the Bible as a perfect, error free thing is idolatry, pure and simple. Swearing an oath with your hand on the Bible is not likely to improve your testimony if you intend to lie anyway. I know people who are careful to always put the Bible on top of any stack of books, but haven’t opened it to actually read what it says in years. That is simple idolatry--worship of some magical property in the book.

If one reads the Bible, it becomes apparent that each book was written by separate individuals with different agendas and different messages, not always in agreement with each other.

Compare Numbers 31:17, 18 “Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him, but all the women children that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourself” with Matthew 5:44, “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you.” I have trouble believing that that same spirit that said kill all the boy babies and their mothers, but keep the girl babies for your slaves is the same entity that says love your enemies.

Take 1 Corinthians 7:1,9 which is dour old Paul on marriage: “It is good for a man not to touch a woman ... but if they cannot contain, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn.” with the poetry of Song of Solomon 5:3-8,

 I sleep--
but my heart awakens.
It's the voice
of my lover
knocking at my door,
saying,

“Open to me, my love,
my dove, my perfect one!
For my head is
full with dew,
and my hair with the
drops of the night!
I have taken off
my coat—why should
I put it on again?
I have washed my feet--
why should they touch
the street again?”

My lover
 put his hand
on my entrance.
A tremor ran through
my belly.
I rose up to
open to my lover,
my hands anointed
with oil and perfume.
My fingers ran about
the handle of his lock.
I opened wide
to my lover,
but my lover had
withdrawn himself,
and was gone.
My soul failed
whenever he talked
I called him
but he gave no answer.
I searched for him,
but I could not find him.
The police found me
in the street,
looking for  my lover.
They beat me.
They stripped me
and put me in jail.
But I've done
nothing wrong!
I'm begging
all the women
in this city,
If you see my lover,
tell him
I'm sick with love!

That comparison may not be fair, because I translated the archaic King James language to modern English to enhance the poetry and romance, but you get the idea. One writer could not have done both of these texts.

Lastly, let’s compare a couple of New Testament texts. First, James 2:10,14, “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all ... what does it profit, my brethren, though a man say he has faith, and have not works? Can faith save him?”  with Galations 2:16,20,21, “...that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified....I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.  I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.”

There is profound disagreement here between James (and Peter) and Paul (and Barnabus). Christianity has been trying to smash these opposing views together into one unified doctrine for two thousand years, but Acts 15:2 says they were NOT in agreement, and in Galations 2:11 Paul says he got right up in Peter’s face! I don’t think they ever came to an agreement, except that Peter would go back to Jerusalem and quit bothering the people in Paul’s churches in Asia Minor and Greece.

The books of the Bible can be fascinating reading, especially if you also read the other contemporaneous books written by other Christian disciples about the early churches and their leaders. The actual history is far more interesting than the legends and myths that modern man has twisted into a Bible. 

Don Rogers
March 28, 2014