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Nancy Tatom Ammerman (born 1950) is an American professor of sociology of religion at Boston University School of Theology.
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Nancy Tatom Ammerman (born 1950) is an American professor of sociology of religion at Boston University School of Theology.
In 1984, Ammerman joined the faculty of Emory University. Her book, Baptist Battles, won the 1992 Distinguished Book Award from the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. In 1995, Ammerman left Emory University to teach at Hartford Seminary. Since 2003, she has been at Boston University. In 2020 she became an honorary doctor at Uppsala University. [1]
She was one of a panel of academics commissioned in 1993 by the U.S. government to analyze what went wrong in its dealings with the Branch Davidians at Waco. Ammerman's report concludes that neither the ATF nor the FBI took David Koresh seriously as a religious man, but rather adopted the "anti-cult" point of view of deprogrammer Rick Ross. She wrote
[...] the most up lifting finding was the FBI's near total dismissal of the religious beliefs of the Branch Davidians. For these men, David Koresh was a sociopath, and his followers were hostages. Religion was a convenient cover for Koresh's desire to control his followers and monopolize all the rewards for himself. They saw no reason to try to understand his religious beliefs, indeed thought them so bizarre as to be incomprehensible by normal people.2 The negotiators expressed deep regret at this state of affairs, but could see no alternatives to the way they had come to understand the situation. The tactical commanders had no real regret, seeing the final outcome as unavoidable. [2]
Ammerman disputes the view that Koresh's followers were "hostages", noting that some of them left their Mount Carmel Center between the initial ATF raid and the last day of the standoff. She also criticizes the Justice Department for ignoring the recommendations of FBI agents, who suggested taking Koresh's religious faith as (at least possibly) sincere and backing off instead of applying ever-increasing pressure.
She also wrote:
The efforts by Arnold and James Tabor represented probably the best hope for a peaceful end to the siege. By working within Koresh's biblical system, they had suggested to him an alternative reading of critical passages in the book (Revelation). By this reading, Koresh should have written or recorded his explanation of the seven seals. The prophesied destruction of the true believers would not have taken place, in this reading, for a long time. The Davidians would have been free to leave their settlement and deal with the government to resolve their differences. Koresh evidently took this teaching and began his interpretive writing. In his last letter, written the week before the fiery end, he stated that he intended to come out when it was complete. The FBI, however, did not take this scenario seriously or believe that Koresh would actually write the document. [2]
She testified during the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Hearings of July/August 1995. She was asked by then U.S. Senator Russel D. Feingold of Wisconsin regards the reported "allegations of violence and instances of child abuse" that were levied against the Branch Davidians. She noted that these allegations are a common response on the part of society in response to groups with unfamiliar beliefs.
For much of the last decade, Ammerman's work has focused on American congregations. Her most recent book, Pillars of Faith: American Congregations and their Partners (University of California Press, 2005), describes the common patterns that shape the work of American's diverse communities of faith. Her 1997 book, Congregation and Community, tells the stories of twenty-three congregations that encountered various forms of neighborhood change in communities around the country. Along with a team of others, she edited and contributed to Studying Congregations: A New Handbook.
The Branch Davidians were an apocalyptic new religious movement founded in 1955 by Benjamin Roden. They regard themselves as a continuation of the General Association of Davidian Seventh-Day Adventists, established by Victor Houteff in 1935.
The Waco siege, also known as the Waco massacre, was the law enforcement siege of the compound that belonged to the religious sect Branch Davidians. It was carried out by the U.S. federal government, Texas state law enforcement, and the U.S. military, between February 28 and April 19, 1993. The Branch Davidians were led by David Koresh and were headquartered at Mount Carmel Center ranch in the community of Axtell, Texas, 13 miles northeast of Waco. Suspecting the group, who had licenses to manufacture and sell weapons, of stockpiling illegal weapons, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) obtained a search warrant for the compound and arrest warrants for Koresh, as well as a select few of the group's members.
Rick Alan Ross is an American deprogrammer, cult specialist, and founder and executive director of the nonprofit Cult Education Institute. He frequently appears in the news and other media discussing groups some consider cults. Ross has intervened in more than 500 deprogramming cases in various countries.
David Koresh was an American cult leader who played a central role in the Waco siege of 1993. As the head of the Branch Davidians, a religious sect and offshoot of the Davidian Seventh-day Adventists, Koresh claimed to be its final prophet. His apocalyptic Biblical teachings, including interpretations of the Book of Revelation and the Seven Seals, attracted various followers.
Catherine Wessinger is an American religion scholar. She is the Rev. H. James Yamauchi, S.J. Professor of the History of Religions at Loyola University New Orleans where she teaches religious studies with a main research focus on millennialism, new religions, women and religion, and religions of India. Wessinger is co-general editor of Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions. She served as a consultant to federal law enforcement during the Montana Freemen standoff and has been cited for her expertise concerning the Branch Davidians and other apocalyptic groups. She is the editor of the Women in Religions series at New York University Press and she is co-editor of the Women in the World's Religions and Spirituality Project, part of the World Religions and Spirituality Project.
Lived religion is the ethnographic and holistic framework in the sociology of religion and religious studies more broadly for understanding the religion as it is practiced by ordinary people in the contexts of everyday life, including domestic, work, commercial, community, and institutional religious settings. The term comes from the French tradition of sociology of religion, or "la religion vécue" though it has followed its own trajectory among scholars with backgrounds in anthropology, cultural studies, history, and sociology or religion as well as religious studies and theology. It is also referred to as "everyday religion" and "living religion."
Waco is an American television miniseries, developed by John Erick Dowdle and Drew Dowdle, that premiered on January 24, 2018, on Paramount Network. The six-episode series dramatizes the 1993 standoff between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), and the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas and stars Michael Shannon, Taylor Kitsch, Andrea Riseborough, Paul Sparks, Rory Culkin, Shea Whigham, Melissa Benoist, John Leguizamo, Julia Garner, and Glenn Fleshler. The miniseries received a mixed response from critics who praised the performances and tension, but criticized the show's sympathetic approach to Branch Davidian leader David Koresh.
Steven Emil Schneider, or Steve Schneider, was an American Branch Davidian commonly called a "lieutenant" to David Koresh, the leader of the new religious movement. He was formally married to Judy Schneider, but in the community Koresh impregnated Judy and she bore a child with him. Steve Schneider was raised in a Seventh-day Adventist household in Wisconsin. Schneider studied at Newbold College in the United Kingdom, and eventually worked to receive a Ph.D. in comparative religion at the University of Hawaii. In approximately 1986, Schneider encountered Marc Breault, an indigenous Hawaiian Branch Davidian, and converted to Branch Davidianism. Schneider was supposedly very successful at gaining converts to Branch Davidianism. David Thibodeau, a survivor of the Waco siege and memoirist, converted after meeting Schneider in California. Scholars James Tabor and Eugene Gallagher note that he claimed to have converted twenty people on a trip to England in 1988. Schneider was in the Mount Carmel compound at the beginning of the Waco siege on 28 February 1993. He stayed in or near the compound for the entire siege and died there. Various police agencies believe that Schneider shot Koresh before shooting himself on 19 April 1993. He was a major character in the 2018 miniseries Waco, played by Paul Sparks.
Douglas Wayne Martin, commonly known as Wayne Martin, was an African-American Branch Davidian and Harvard-trained attorney. He worked as an attorney in multiple fields, including contract, child custody, and real estate law, and provided the proceeds the Branch Davidians. He was nominally married to Sheila Judith Martin, another Branch Davidian, but she was "carnally" married to David Koresh, the Branch Davidian leader. Wayne and Sheila had six children, three of whom died in the 1993 fire. Sheila had two more children with Koresh. In total, four children died in the 19 April fire: Wayne Joseph, 20; Anita, 18; Sheila Renee, 15; and Lisa Martin, 13. Sheila Martin, who left Mount Carmel Center on 21 March in the middle of the siege, eventually won custody over the three surviving children: James, Daniel, and Kimberly Martin. Wayne Martin was present at Mount Carmel Center when the 28 February 1993 raid occurred. He was the first person in the compound to call 9-1-1 to local authorities and asked to call off the raid for risk of harming women and children. He was considered the second- or third-in-command at Mt. Carmel, behind or equal to Steve Schneider. He died in the 19 April 1993 fire with three of his children. Wayne Martin was a character in the 2018 miniseries Waco, played by Demore Barnes.
David or Dave Thibodeau was a Branch Davidian, a survivor of the Waco siege, and a musician. He was born in Bangor, Maine. In early adulthood, Thibodeau sought to become a musician in Los Angeles, California, where he converted to Branch Davidianism after meeting David Koresh in a Guitar Center in 1990. In the late 1980s, he attended the Musicians Institute of Technology. At the Mount Carmel Center near Waco, Texas, Thibodeau married Michele Jones upon Koresh's request. Thibodeau was present at the Mt. Carmel compound on 28 February 1993, when the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) conducted a botched raid. He stayed for the 51-day siege until escaping the fire that consumed the compound with eight other survivors. In 1999, he co-authored a memoir called A Place Called Waco: A Survivor's Story with Leon Whiteson, a Zimbabwe-born novelist, critic, and architect. Thibodeau runs a website called "Waco Survivors," in which he archives media related to the Waco siege. He (re-)married in 1997 and has at least one daughter. In 2018, the miniseries Waco aired featuring Rory Culkin playing David Thibodeau and Thibodeau himself in a cameo role as an unnamed character. Thibodeau is a drummer for the band The Blast Addicts, and he resided in Texas as of 2020. He played drums for other bands after the Waco siege as well like Grooviest Maximus.
Clive Joseph Doyle was a leader in the Branch Davidian movement after the Waco siege in 1993. He was a Branch Davidian and a Davidian Seventh-day Adventist before the Waco siege. Doyle was one of nine survivors of the April 19, 1993 fire that destroyed the Mount Carmel Center at the end of the siege. He along with other survivors built a new chapel on the site of the siege in 1999.
Sheila Judith Martin is a Branch Davidian and a survivor of the Waco siege. She was the wife of Douglas Wayne Martin, a Harvard-educated lawyer, who died in the 19 April 1993 fire that destroyed Mount Carmel Center. Four out of her seven children died in the fire: Wayne Joseph, 20; Anita, 18; Sheila Renee, 15; and Lisa Martin, 13. In September 1993, she received custody of James Martin (1982–1998) who has cerebral palsy and is blind because of a meningitis infection at 4 months old. By 1994, she obtained custody in Texas state court of her two other children – Daniel and Kimberly.
Livingstone Fagan – sometimes misspelled as Livingston Fagan – is a Black British Branch Davidian who survived the Waco siege in 1993. He was born in Jamaica but moved to Nottingham in 1964 with his parents as part of the Windrush generation. He joined the Branch Davidians in 1989 while studying to join the Seventh-day Adventist ministry in the United Kingdom. He moved to Mount Carmel Center with his wife, Evette, and mother, Doris Adina, both of whom would die in the 19 April 1993 fire. He left the Mount Carmel Center before the 19 April fire. He was tried and convicted in the United States of voluntary manslaughter and using a firearm during a crime. He was given a 30-year prison sentence and spent about half of it in various holding facilities in the United States. He was released in July 2007 and deported to the United Kingdom where he currently lives.
The Davidian Massacre: Disturbing Questions About Waco That Must Be Answered is a 1995 non-fiction book about the Waco siege written by Carol Moore. It was co-published by the Gun Owners of America Foundation and Legacy Communications.
The Ashes of Waco: An Investigation is a 1995 non-fiction book by journalist Dick J. Reavis about the Waco siege. Reavis is a professor of English at North Carolina State University and former reporter for the San Antonio Light and San Antonio Express. The book was first published by Simon & Schuster in 1995, and it was later re-published by Syracuse University Press in 1998. According to Catherine Wessinger, Reavis argues that "the story of the Davidian tragedy was not reported fully, in part because the FBI controlled information, but also because reporters did not investigate". Reavis reportedly left his job from an "alternative" newspaper in Texas to research for the book.
Armageddon in Waco: Critical Perspectives on the Branch Davidian Conflict is a 1995 non-fiction anthology book on the Waco siege edited by Stuart A. Wright. It was published by the University of Chicago Press.
Why Waco?: Cults and the Battle for Religious Freedom in America is a 1995 non-fiction book written by James D. Tabor and Eugene V. Gallagher on the Waco siege and the anti-cult movement in America. It was published by the University of California Press. The same press reprinted it in 1997 in paperback. The appendix of the book contains an unfinished manuscript written by David Koresh, the leader of the Branch Davidians, on the Seven seals in the Book of Revelation. The appendix has a preface written by Tabor and J. Phillip Arnold. The manuscript was obtained from a survivor of the fire, Ruth Riddle. The final pages of the book provide a list of Branch Davidians who died in the 28 February 1993 raid, the 19 April 1993 fire, and who survived.
Ruth Ottman Riddle is a Canadian Branch Davidian and survivor of the Waco siege. She was born as Ruth Ellen Ottman. Riddle was one of nine survivors of the 19 April 1993 fire that destroyed the Mount Carmel Center and most of its occupants. She carried with her after leaving the compound a copy of David Koresh's final incomplete manuscript which after creating he agreed to leave. It was reprinted in James D. Tabor and Eugene V. Gallagher's book Why Waco?: Cults and the Battle for Religious Freedom in America. She was married to another Branch Davidian, James Loyle Riddle, who died in the 19 April 1993 fire. Her niece, Misty Dawn Ferguson, survived the fire as well. She was formerly of Tweed, Ontario. However, other sources indicate she is from Oshawa, Ontario.
Dana Okimoto is an American former Branch Davidian. She moved to Waco, Texas, from Los Angeles, California, in approximately 1988 with Robyn Bunds, a former Branch Davidian turned critic. She is originally from Hawaii and is a registered psychiatric nurse at Kaneohe State Hospital, and remarried to Roy Kiyabu, a chef, as of 2003. She gave birth to Sky or Skye Borne Okimoto and Scooter Okimoto, who are both children of David Koresh, the leader of the Branch Davidians.
The Branch Davidians of Waco: The History and Beliefs of an Apocalyptic Sect is a 2006 nonfiction book by Kenneth G. C. Newport about the Branch Davidians before, during, and after the Waco siege. It was published by Oxford University Press. The book primarily addresses the beliefs, practices, and crucial events in Branch Davidian history through Victor Houteff to David Koresh and Clive Doyle.
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