Branch Davidians, Waco
General Discussions ( Anything Goes )
Those of you with a subscription to The Times can see the full article at thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/Magazine/Features/article212253.ece but I will try to summarise the article myself.
Elsewhere on this site, we've discussed guns in America and no one will forget David Koresh who, in February 1993 (can it be that long ago?), led the Branch Davidians into an armed standoff with the FBI, with appalling consequences.
12 miles north of Waco, the pastor of the local church, Charles Pace, is aiming to create The Garden of Eden. The Branch Davidian movement began in the 1930s, started by a Bulgarian immigrant called Victor Houteff who split from the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. Charles Pace, who also calls himself Joshua ben David, is the current leader.
Alex Hannaford, the writer of this feature, says that Davidian theology is meeting a disturbing ideology that is gaining traction in America. "According to a report by the human rights group Southern Poverty Law Center, since Barack Obama's first election win in 2008, there has been a revival of the rabidly anti-government, so called "patriot" movement of the 1990s: civilian militias, tax defiers, Second Amendment "righters", united in their determination to oppose a "socialist" president.... Some of these militantly anti-government forces think an elite group is plotting to take over the world and create a new world order. The theory also attracts radical end-times fundamentalist Christians, who say that at the head this group is the devil himself. Pace's conspiracy theory is difficult to articulate, but it goes something like this: Roman Catholicism and Islam are one and the same ("The Jesuits wrote The Koran"), the Federal Reserve is run by The Vatican; and the four beasts of Revelation are Bill Clinton, George Bush Sr, George Bush Jr and Obama - with the latter intent on imposing sharia after he's destroyed the constitution."
Naturally, Pace believes that God is on his side. He also believes that Texas will secede from the Union and American gun-owners are gearing up for civil war. He wants Mount Carmel to become a rallying point and a place of refuge.
updated by @gaynor-madoc-leonard: 12/04/15 03:57:27PM
