November 1, 1993 - 12:00pm - Editors

The North American Division sent a fax transmission to the unions, conferences, and healthcare system administrators of North America on Friday afternoon, September 24, warning of possible Davidian attacks on Adventist leaders and property the following day, Sabbath, September 25. The fax began with the warning “URGENT DATED INFORMATION!” When the warning reached pastors and local congregations it was reported to be based on an eight-page document sent to the General Conference by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. For Adventists across North America, however, the Sabbath came and went without incident.

On October 7, Gary Patterson, assistant to the president of the North American Division, informed Adventist Today that the FBI had never been in contact with the church regarding the threat and that there was evidently no substance to the warning. But if not the FBI, then what?

On September 22, Albert Long, secretary of the Georgia-Cumberland Conference, faxed a two-page summary of a lengthy, scarcely legible document to Philip Follet, a GC vice president. That document identified itself as coming from the “Pre-11th Hour Continued Study” in Antioch, Tennessee, a suburb of Nashville, and purported to speak for Davidians in general.

The General Conference, the document explained, had rejected repeated Shepherd’s Rod/Davidian warnings, and predicted that the Day of Atonement, September 25, would mark the close of probation for Seventh-day Adventists. On that day there would be a “showdown” in which Davidians would destroy Seventh-day Adventist leaders and pastors as (presumably) foretold in Ezekiel 9, and Davidians would be “sealed” as the 144,000 of Revelation 7. The threat included the destruction of offices and headquarters buildings. The document also predicted Christ’s return at the close of the year 2000.

In a letter dated September 20, however, the “General Association of Davidian Seventh-day Adventists” in Waco, Texas, emphatically disowned any responsibility for the document or its prediction:

It has been brought to our attention that a single individual with a ministry, so-called “Pre-11th Hour Continued Study,” has been promoting that the slaughter of Ezekiel chapter nine, the cleansing of the church, will commence on the 25th of September, 1993…Be it known that the aforementioned ministry does not represent the GENERAL ASSOCIATION OF DAVIDIAN SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISTS. (Emphasis theirs).

On September 22, the Crisis Anticipation and Management Committee of the GC considered Albert Long’s summary of the 11th Hour document. Cautioning not to “overreact to the situation,” it nevertheless decided to alert church leaders of the threat. Shirley Burton, GC communications director, was authorized to alert the FBI regarding the threat, but, as of October 7, the FBI had not acknowledged receipt of her memo.

Against a background of recent terrorist attacks such as the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City, the Crisis Anticipation and Management Committee of the GC alerted the church but advised caution. The committee left each administrative unit of the church free to notify its subsidiary entities as it might see fit.

The Southeastern California Conference, for instance, did notify a number of churches in areas where Davidians were known to reside. Lynn Mallery, conference president, canceled a speaking appointment at the Garden Grove church in Orange County. Some local churches took special precautions such as locking unguarded entrances, and placing elders and deacons on alert.

As with a warning of a bomb secreted aboard an airliner, the church took this dubious threat seriously despite the inconvenience, but everyone relaxed once the threat proved to be a hoax.