Shepherd's Rod / Davidian History - Temcat's House

Shepherd’s Rod and the Davidians
But, somehow, Roden's failings managed to be forgotten by the mid-1960s. He had taken leadership of
one of the splinters and, in the process, founded an offshoot, with headquarters in Riverside, California.
After a lengthy legal battle, Benjamin Roden and his wife Lois were eventually permitted to occupy the
Mount Carmel Center. But, by the terms of the settlement, they were required to buy out the shares of
all the Davidians holding them.
Splintering continued among the Davidians, but Roden's group remained the largest of them. Benjamin
Roden called himself the antitypical David, king of Israel.
After years of hard work and internecine strife, in 1978 Roden died and his widow, Lois, became the
leader at Waco. It was still called "Mount Carmel, " and was still located on that same 78-acre bit of
scrub and pasture land, 10 miles east of Waco, near the Elk community, where Florence Houteff had
relocated it in 1955. Now, once again it was becoming the center for the most fanatical elements in the
Rod.
But, by this time, members no longer called themselves "the Rod." Instead, they spoke of themselves as
"Branch Davidians." This was done to distinguish the Rodenites from Rod groups elsewhere, who were
simply calling themselves "Davidians." In their publications, the Roden group called themselves "The
Branch."
By the mid 1970s, Lois Roden had established herself as the new prophet of the Davidians. In 1977, Lois
created a small sensation in the press when she announced a new teaching: Claiming to have received a
vision from God, she said that the Holy Spirit was a woman. Newspaper photographers came out and
snapped pictures of her holding a dove in her hand.
In honor of the new teaching, Lois and her followers launched a new publication, called the "SHEkinah."
This peculiar teaching was quickly adopted by her followers, and is held today by those in the Waco
center including Koresh, as well as by a number of other Davidian groups elsewhere. Keep in mind that,
by the 1980s, there were over ten separate Davidian groups in the United States and several overseas.
They were consistently quite small, with the exception of the group at Waco, which was always the
largest and most fanatical. The people most possessed with Davidian errors would move there to await
the end of the world and their move to Jerusalem.
Lois died in 1986, but by then other mouthpieces were already arising. One hopeful was her son,
George.
Another called himself "Eliakim." Anxious to establish himself as someone important in the world of the
Davidians, a man traveled to Israel and soon began sending out newsletters to the faithful, using a
concocted Hebrew name. He claimed to have a small acreage in Israel, which he said was to be used as a
stopover for the Davidians when they shortly made that sudden journey to old Jerusalem, where they
would all be enthroned in the Davidic Kingdom.
We earlier mentioned that the seeds of destruction of Davidianism was in its own teachings. In the early
1980s, a young, 23-year-old man walked into the Waco center.
His name was Vernon Howell. He would transform the Waco center into an armed fortress, change his
name to David Koresh, and finally take on the U.S. Government.
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