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The news from Lake Waco-begone
Remember those Branch Davidians? I bet you didn't know they're still around, did you? Anyway, I didn't until I heard them come up in an NPR story yesterday as I was scrambling to get my ducks lined up for our new apartment. A text version--and link to the oral version--is here, and the story is headlined to be about how the "Branch Davidians see Conspiracy in Highway Project." The part that was interesting to me was just that these folks are still around. But then, I guess persecution and ridicule never did all that much to dislodge religious belief, did it? If anything, it seems to have made Christianity stronger in its early years. Government persecuted it when things went wrong and eventually tossed practitioners to the lions, while the intelligentsia of the day argued for its ridiculousness and condemned it as a religion of the poorly-educated.
It seems that there's a museum and memorial markers at the old compound for everyone killed in the standoff with the government--and there's a new leader, Charles Pace, who has determined that the events at Waco were a celestial judgment upon David Koresh's leadership. As such, he has torn down Koresh's marker and memorial tree and established what I suppose will be called Reformed Branch Davidianism--if these folks ever manage to get out from under the stigmatic umbrella of cultishness and into the fashionable circus tent that is religion.
Not all Branch Davidians, however, are buying into Charles Pace's program.
"Charlie never believed in David," said Catherine Matteson, a 91-year-old Koresh follower who survived the siege. "He thinks he's the next one to David. He doesn't know what David taught. Charlie is teaching Charlie, what Charlie believes. David was teaching the Bible."
You know what my first thought was? Honest to dog, my first thought was that I bet people were saying the same thing about Paul back in the day. "Paul never believed in Jesus. He thinks he's the one next to Jesus. He doesn't know what Jesus taught. Paul is teaching Paul, what Paul believes. Jesus was teaching messianic Judaism." Well, we know how that one turned out, don't we? Of course, all of this is easier to gloss over thousands of years later, isn't it, especially when the weight of history is on one's side? I can't imagine that either Koresh or Pace will manage to achieve anything like what Christianity managed; people are still fairly credulous today but, I should think, not nearly so much in terms of religion. Now, if either Koresh or Pace had said that "Scientific studies show..." well, more of those folks who are said to be born every minute might now be Branch Davidians.