Branch Davidians

Branch Davidians, who are they? Where did they come from? These are the questions that you must answer in order to fully understand the whole movement. When I first heard of the Branch Davidians it was when they were broadcast around the world in Waco Texas facing off against the FBI.

So upon reading about them in the text book I decided to start a little research through Google. It was amazing what I found out about the Davidians.

This is not a new religious movement that was just started, it has actually been around for a long time.

It was started by a man named Victor Houteff. He started this new religion in 1929. They are an offshoot of Seventh Day Adventist (SDA which in many Christian Churches they are seen as a cult as well). Mr. Houteff, first embrassed the Seventh Day's teachings until he read into Micah 6:9 "Hear ye the Rod" and from this verse he concluded that the SDA. (Why from one verse he came to this conclusion I do not know.) He started to make his interpretations of the Bible and claimed that the SDA were in error and he called for reform. The SDA started to shun him and his followers. He finally completely broke away from the SDA and started his own church known as The Shepard's Rod.

As in many NRMs Mr. Houteff believed he was a devine messenger of God sent to straighten out the rest of the world. He thought he was here to interpret the sealed scroll found in Revelations, that would reveal all that was to take place in the end times before Jesus Christ would return.

He was to assemble 144000 people and go to Palestine and establish a kingdom and help over throw Babylon and signal the end of the world. Mr. Houteff founded the Mount Carmel Center in Waco Texas with 11 people. He recruited from the SDA until about 1942 then he broke completely from them because they didn't allow for conscientious objection status during World War 2. Mr. Houteff then changed his groups name to the Davidian Seventh Day Adventist Association. His recruitment level kept rising until he had about 125 people at the Mount Carmel site and other in Los Angeles and other parts of the country.

Mr. Houteff never realized his dream since he died in 1955, which really shocked the rest of his followers since they looked up to him as some type of god or Elijah. His wife took over the group but had a lot of problems with splintering. She also made the mistake of making a prophecy when the world would end etc and when it didn't happen the group lost faith in her. She later sold the compound to one of the men who had splintered from the group. He then changed the name to Branch Davidian SDA. His name was Ben Roden. Mr. Roden then got delusions of grandeur and called himself the 5th angel. This was in following with Mr. Houteff who called himself the 4th angel. When Mr. Roden died his wife took over as the 6th angel and continued to lead the Davidians.

In 1981 a Vernon Howell joined the Davidians and was actually named the successor and as the 7th angel. Mr. Howell was kicked out in