book
Why Waco? Cults and the Battle for Religious Freedom in America
Tabor, James D., and Eugene V. Gallagher. Why Waco? Cults and the Battle for Religious Freedom in America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.
Why this matters here
James D. Tabor and Eugene V. Gallagher’s Why Waco? examines Branch Davidian scriptural interpretation—especially David Koresh’s Seven Seals teaching—and the deadly costs of translating that world into secular hostage-negotiation categories alone. When Interpretation No Longer Matters uses that case for epistemic enclosure: outside pressure enters only as persecution, testing, fulfillment, or confirmation. The source argues for taking the Davidians’ interpretive world seriously; the book asks when interpretation thrives inside while permeability fails.
