ABSTRACT
The Davidians are a millennial reform movement that emerged within the Seventh-Day Adventist Church in 1929. They firmly believed that Christ would return soon. But they also feared that the worldliness of the church would delay the return of Christ. They organized to call the parent church back to God and to serve as an example of how God’s people should live. The Seventh-Day Adventist denomination consistently rejected the message of the Davidians. The Branch Davidians split from the Davidians in 1955, thereby creating two major groups of Davidians. In 1993, following a standoff with federal government officials and the burning of their residence which claimed more than eighty lives, the term Branch Davidians and the name of their leader, David Koresh, became household words.
