A sympathetic look at Waco — maybe too much?

Is it TOO sympathetic, both in the author's treatment of two religious leaders who attempted to negotiate with David Koresh at the time, and the stance of those two religious leaders themselves? Let's dig in on this extended version of a Goodreads review.

Waco: David Koresh, the Branch Davidians, and A Legacy of Rage by Jeff Guinn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is good to very good but not quite great as pop history, and OK-plus but not quite very good as semi-academic history. It’s also one of those books whose possible rating changed in my mind while writing up this review. (It's really a 4.25, which is what it got at StoryGraph.)

The good? First, Guinn gives a detailed, and accurate, history of Branch Davidian’s history, starting with the foundation of Adventism, then through Davidian’s start as an offshoot of traditional Adventism. Connecting Cyrus Teed to Koresh via Lois Roden getting his one book sent to the Waco-McLennan County Library. (I know Sean Sutcliffe from days of living in Marlin, Texas. I also from days of living in the Metroplex, know Carlton Stowers.) His idiomatic interpretation of “Messiah” as someone chosen by god for a specific purpose is also good, and probably assisted by biblical scholars who helped him. In all this, it's generally a good work.

His description of how ATF’s surprise was blown, not by ATF itself, nor by the Waco Trib’s start of a story series, but by a clueless KWTX cameraman who should have been fired if he wasn’t, is also good. So, too, is the backstory on why ATF pushed to go through with the raid even after local leaders knew cover had been blown. Later in the book, the description of differences between ATF and FBI in hierarchy, organization and lower-level autonomy is important.

Getting ATF people to talk, whether on the record or on background, is also good. That said, with two other new books out for the 30th anniversary, I don’t know if Guinn was any more successful on that than the other two authors.

Really good? His alternative 4 on how the fire started — neither FBI-deliberate (I reject that as he also seems to do), nor Branch Davidian-deliberate (the compound was too disorganized) nor accidental, but Koresh-deliberate, based on a literalistic interpretation of a “wall of fire” from Zechariah. OTOH, that assumes that under that much stress, that Koresh could have popped up such an idea is perhaps questionable.

Issues? And, this is where we extend off the Goodreads review. 

James Tabor is arguably but NOT Unarguably an “esteemed religious scholar.” I would be OK with using "recognized" in an academia sense but wouldn't go further.  J. Philip Arnold isn’t even that.

Tabor believes in a quasi-DaVinci Code David family dynasty theory of a Jesus movement, and also believes that the James ossuary, and others where he has gotten even more scorned, are “real” burial sites of Jesus’ family and disciples. 

Arnold seems to be some sort of quasi-Restorationist Xn. He was also flat wrong in the insinuation I infer behind his statement that Branch Davidian was entitled to First Amendment protection. Said protection does not include violating state child sex abuse or federal gun control law. This is clear in a variety of court rulings up to SCOTUS level. 

Both were probably overly sympathetic to Koresh at the time they were entering negotiations. Guinn doesn’t address that, nor does he address the issue of whether Tabor and Arnold might have been not just sympathetic but so overly sympathetic that they thought they really could have gotten Koresh to surrender. 

I personally doubt that; Tabor seems like he might have been close to gullible on the issue and Arnold might even have inadvertently egged Koresh on, if allowed more contact. Guinn definitely doesn't address that issue. Nor does he address the possibility that not everybody on the FBI team was an urban yokel about these issues.

Beyond that, as recently retired NPR religion reporter Jeff Burnett (originally from here in Tex-ass, in Sherman, and for whom the standoff was one of his first big pieces) tells the Texas Observer, David Koresh was also another in a long line of skirt-chasing, money-grifting evangelists.
 

Nor does Guinn address the likelihood that FBI people were right and the promised exegesis of all seven seals would have become a stall tactic around seal 6 with Koresh saying, “God won’t give me more revelation.” I think this is not only possible but likely.

Also, even though he’s written a book about Jonestown, Guinn doesn’t try to draw parallels. Personally, by the end of the book, I was more reminded of Heaven’s Gate, though it, unlike Jonestown and Mount Carmel, did not end in a battle with government forces. Jonestown, though, had a number of people starting to become disillusioned before the denouement, whereas Heaven’s Gate, like Mount Carmel or even more, had all true believers.

That said, the epilogue, “Clive Doyle is Waiting” was good, illustrating him as the truest of surviving true believers. And it ends with him dying.

As did some people 2,000 years ago.

And, that's the final missed parallel. Beyond not comparing Mount Carmel to Heaven's Gate, Guinn in general doesn't "play it forward." And, on the political connections, that's the biggest failing of the book and it ties with giving Arnold uncritical airspace.

Nor does he "play it backward." About a decade earlier, Guinn wrote a good bio of Charles Manson. But, in his Koresh bio, he doesn't note the number of parallels between the two. Some of the parallels are tighter, some are looser, and not every aspect of their two lives is parallel. But, enough are to make me wonder if Guinn was deliberately too sympathetic to Koresh to the point of punch-pulling.


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