Suicide Cults: Seventh-day Advents

After attending the lecture on Seventh Day Adventists at Waco I came to the conclusion that this was the most tragic, compared to the other incidents such as Heavens Gate, Solar Temple & Jonestown. I don’t know if the rest of my group agree but the SDA members seemed to me to have less in common than the rest of the "New Religious Movements" (NRM) or "cults" we have looked at so far.

Firstly the Waco siege ended in violence on a scale far larger than the other NRM's even compared to the bazaar multiple shootings of the Solar Temple members. Secondly there was a large scale presence of the state (FBI etc) involved in the group’s death. This begs the question would they have been so many deaths if the people of the compound had been approached differently?

I’m not denying that there may have been criminal behaviour happening at the compound. But I feel that a true study of the people living at Waco can never be truly accomplished due to the mismanagement of the FBI.

Lastly there seems to be a lot to be said in favour of the basic believes of the Seventh Day Adventist. The fact that the SDA has many churches across the globe shows its popularity, I even ride past one church in Wolverhampton on the university bus every morning.

The Waco siege was an issue off bad judgement on both sides. I believe it could have ended very differently. I think as George notes in his book “Had the authorities chosen an academic advisor, who might have been more familiar with the kinds of ideas that were being preached at Waco, it is possible that negotiation could have been accomplished with a happier outcome.” * . I think that when trying to study the siege of Waco, the way the FBI behaved and the choises they made are fundamental to way the siege ended.