March 6, 1993: Davidian Sect Not Represented by Waco Branch Davidians, Member Says

Logo of the General Association of Davidian Seventh-day Adventists. [Source: The Branch (.org)]Anthony Hibbert, a member of the Davidian sect of the Seventh-day Adventists, tells a reporter that the Branch Davidian “splinter” sect currently besieged in a compound outside Waco, Texas (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993 and March 1, 1993), is not representative of the Davidians as a whole. Hibbert cites a statement from the General Association of Davidian Seventh-day Adventists in stating that the Branch Davidians and their leader, David Koresh, “are not a representation of our message.… We do not advocate the use of guns, violence, free sex, or anything of that nature.” The Davidians believe that in the final days of existence—the Biblical “End Times,” or the time of the Apocalypse—God will purge the church of all but the truly faithful, a “slaughter” of unworthy Seventh-day Adventists. This purge, Hibbert says, will not be done “by guns and not by us or any human beings but by God himself and his angels—we want to make that very clear.” Hibbert is going to great lengths to distance Koresh’s Branch Davidians, so named because they are a “branch” of the more mainstream Davidians, from the mainline sect. He says many Davidians still consider themselves Seventh-day Adventists, whereas Koresh’s Branch Davidians consider themselves entirely separate. [New York Times, 3/6/1993]