Maria #197DO 2860/93

INTERVIEW WITH 21-YEAR-OLD BRANCH DAVIDIAN KAREN DOYLE ON AN AMERICAN TV SHOW

(From NACRO:) Among the various TV shows covering the Waco story, we thought you might be interested in this particular transcript:

Narrator: Although most of the followers of David Koresh are now dead, the story is not over. Some of his disciples survive & remain fanatically devoted. This worries authorities. Rick Kirkham found one woman living in California who is holding on to Koresh.

Karen: We were driving along & we had the radio on when we heard that the ATF decided to go in & start punching holes & whatever.

Narrator: When government agents began their assault on the compound in Waco, Karen Doyle was not there. She & a handful of other followers were returning home to California after celebrating Passover outside the compound.

This house in LaVerne, California‚ was once the home of David Koresh; in fact‚ three of his followers still live here. It is the only property left in the Koresh holdings. And ironically, one member who still lives here, Karen Doyle‚ says she would have rather been at the compound at the time that it burnt to the ground than here. She contends that those who died in the fire along with David were the lucky ones.

Karen: I wish I had been there from the very beginning. My wishes were that I was inside with the rest of my friends & family.

Interviewer: You wish you had been in the compound when it burnt to the ground?

Karen: Yes, I do.

Interviewer: You would have burned to death!

Karen: I suppose I would have, but you know, we don't look at physically losing this body as a tragedy or....

Narrator: It's no surprise that 21-year–old Karen Doyle believes so strongly in the teachings of David Koresh. She was, after all‚ born & raised inside the compound that once stood in Waco. But what is surprising is the way in which Doyle looks upon the deaths of Koresh & her fellow members, one of the victims having been her own younger sister.

Interviewer: Your sister perished!

Karen: So to speak‚ yes.

Interviewer: Are you sad by that?

Karen: No, I'm very happy for her. I mean, I know I will see her again. So....

Interviewer: But one would ask, burning to death is not a nice way to die.

Karen: No, it is not, but I don't believe that she suffered. So, you know....

Interviewer: You're more happy for her.

Karen: I'm very happy for her, yes.

Interviewer: What about the 17 children?—These young kids who were inside the compound who perished in this horrible fire, how do you feel about them?

Karen: I'm very happy for them. I know that I will see everyone again. It's not a matter of your own sadness or anything like that, because I have faith & I know that God has everything in control, & I'm just very happy for them.

Interviewer: You're not worried at all that those 17 little kids may have literally burned to death?

Karen: Like I say, I don't believe they suffered at all, so I'm not worried, because they were under God's protection.

Narrator: With the compound now destroyed, will this suburban Victorian home in Southern California serve as the new headquarters for what is left of Koresh's followers?

Karen: It's not going to be the new compound or the new place where we are going to come together.

Narrator: Karen says rebuilding is unimportant. She & the remaining Branch Davidian members are instead waiting—waiting for a sign from Heaven.

Interviewer: And what might the sign be?

Karen: Well, I'm sure there will be many, but right now, David had given a prediction of the Waco dam bursting & the waters flooding Waco.

Narrator: Koresh had told authorities that he was in the process of explaining the Seven Seals, Biblical prophecies foreshadowing the end of the World. According to his followers, Koresh predicted an earthquake would cause the Waco dam to break & flood the town. Now authorities tell "Inside Edition" that there is concern that surviving cult members will try to fulfil that prophecy by vandalising the dam. Meanwhile the Waco dam still stands firm‚ as does Karen Doyle in her belief that the legacy of David Koresh will continue on.

Karen: This is not the end for us as a people, it is only the beginning of new & better things.

Narrator: Hard to believe. Although Karen Doyle did lose her sister, her father survived. He was in the compound & was one of the few who got out of the fire. He suffered burns, but he'll live.

(end of interview)

Mama's Comments on Karen Doyle's Interview:

Maria #197 DO 2860 4/93

1. THIS GIRL'S TESTIMONY is going to be used to "prove," of course‚ that children in New Religious Movements grow up completely crazy, completely irrational, & are willing to die at the drop of a hat. They'll try to use this to prove all the negative things that they can, but mostly, of course, that she's completely crazy, which is obviously their view of things.

2. The ironic thing about it is that all Christians everywhere are supposed to believe exactly the same things which she stated! The Scriptures say over & over & over again that there's a better place, & "if in this life only we have hope, we are of all men most miserable."—1Cor.15:19. The Christian's hope has always been to go to Heaven & be with the Lord. This life is pretty difficult & gets pretty intolerable sometimes, & Christians all down through the ages have sung about & written about & longed for the time when they would go to be with the Lord. This is as logical & Biblical as anything, & all Christians are supposed to believe exactly the same thing that she believes!—And not just Christians, but almost all religions look forward to a better World beyond this one! Paul said that "to depart & be with Christ is far better" than this life, & that "we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house (body) which is from Heaven."—Phil.1:23; 2Cor.5:2.

3. So it just shows how anti-God, anti-Christ, anti-religion, anti-faith—any kind of faith—the U.S. has become!—When they dismiss this girl as crazy just because she's stating that she's thankful that her friends & relatives are in a better place after being tortured & tormented & hounded & burned‚ & saying that she wishes she could be with them. Even Systemites who have lost their loved ones say, "Oh‚ I lost my wife, I lost my children. I love my family & I wish I would have gone with them." When you lose everything you've loved & you've cared so deeply for, of course you want to be with them! Why should you want to stay here? That's even normal System logic & anybody ought to be able to see that!

4. But people don't think! They're so brainwashed & so propagandised against cults that all they can see is‚ "This girl must be crazy! She wanted to go with them!"—When‚ if they had an ounce of rationality themselves‚ they would see that they would have said the very same thing if all their friends & family had perished.

5. If they would stop & think sanely, they would realise that the Christians, the Jews, the Muslims, or followers of virtually any religion all look for a better life too! If they had put themselves in those poor Davidians' place‚ after being hounded & tortured & traumatised & persecuted for 51 days the way they were‚ they would be thankful that they had gone on to a better World too! They're the ones who are irrational & crazy & ridiculous!

6. To dismiss that girl as crazy just because she expressed basic Christian doctrine & logic & sanity shows how insane they are! It just makes me furious! It's almost unbelievable!—Except it's not unbelievable because you know how clever the Devil is at duping people & deceiving them & brainwashing them, which is what he's done to the System. It just makes you furious, though, that they're going to use this basic Christian testimony & rational thinking, this completely logical way of looking at things, as "proof" that "not only is this girl crazy, but all the members of her group are crazy.—And not only are they crazy, but all cult members are crazy!—And all of their children are in danger of growing up in this horrible way! So we'd better get the kids out of all cults as fast as possible, because they're growing up with this crazy, irrational way of thinking that they would rather live in a better World than this one!—And how could any World be better than this one?!—And not only that, but every aspect of their life is crazy & irrational, & how could the mothers not send their children out?" (They probably couldn't even get out, for one thing!) "And how can they bring them up quoting Scripture & not quoting anything else, not quoting the latest TV shows & rap songs?"

7. The System is hitting on everything religious & turning it into something evil & something crazy, when we're the ones who are rational, we're the ones who are sane, because what we're doing is based on Scripture—as was much of what the Davidians were doing as well—& it's God's Word!—The System is the one that's insane! So it's our word against theirs, their word against ours. But it's actually God's Word against theirs, & it's God's Word against the Devil's word! We know it's God's Word, we know we're right, & we know what's right & what's true because we've got a standard, we've got an absolute! "We know that we are of God, & that the whole World lieth in wickedness!"—1Jn.5:19.

8. Systemites don't know where they get their crazy doctrines from, which of course they get from the Devil‚ right straight out of Hell! But we can point to where ours come from in no uncertain terms. We have God's Word & we don't have to look to Freud or to Dr. Spock or to who knows what author, or to people like Margaret Singer [an anti-cult psychologist] to figure out what we believe. We've got the Word & we know where it is & we know what it is, & we can show it to people. We know what we believe & we know it's the Truth. They're just floundering around listening to all the evil ideas of the Devil, & they all end up sounding pretty much the same because they're all on his track & doing his bidding. It's all the Devil's word, although they don't realise it because they don't have something called the Devil's Book. But all those books are the Devil's books if they contradict God's Word!

9. Thank God people can take death like that girl took it! Her sister died, & her father got burned but didn't die. Almost everyone dear to her is dead, her father is evidently badly burned, practically all the rest of the Branch Davidian members that are alive are in jail, so she's almost by herself now, almost on her own. It must be so traumatic for her. Thank God she can take things so peacefully & so beautifully! What a jewel! What an exception to this World's crazed attitude towards death. That sort of outlook drives them crazy! They don't know how to handle it, they go berserk! But in spite of the horrible things she's been through & what she's going through right now, she can thank the Lord & be peaceful & be happy & be thankful that God had mercy on them. She has such conviction in what she believes.

10. The problem is, however, that because the System is so corrupt & evil & they can't understand the things of the Spirit (1Cor.2:14), her good is going to be evil spoken of by them.—The words she says, her attitude, her peace & calmness, everything! To us, who might in the future be called upon to testify to our faith under severe persecution, it would be good to see in retrospect where she might have been able to not only speak to them on a spiritual level‚ but to appeal to their carnal minds as well—their natural reasoning.

11. When the interviewer asked her, "You wish you had been in the compound when it burned to the ground?", Karen says, "Yes‚ I do." She could have added, "If you had lost everyone dear to you—your mother‚ your father, your sisters, your brothers, your wife, your children, your aunts, your uncles, all your friends—would you want to live alone without them?" Even if the interviewer couldn't comprehend such a thing, any listeners who have gone through the same thing would totally relate & understand the feelings of the one left behind in the initial stages of bereavement.

12. When Karen says, "We don't look at physically losing this body as a tragedy‚" she could have added‚ "How would you feel if for 51 days you had been shot at & hounded & harassed & persecuted & deprived of all of your human rights? What if you hadn't been able to sleep, live normally, you'd been under house arrest‚ unable to go outside your home, you'd been under siege by the U.S. government & all their soldiers & tanks, & the psychological warfare of continuous 24-hour horror noise & bright lights all night long? What if you were deprived of basic necessities such as electricity & water, unable to have contact with the outside world—& with no prospect of things getting any better, only years of imprisonment & months of trials & sentencing & being separated from each other, & permanently separated from your children? If you saw that God in His mercy was taking you out of this horrible, unbearable World to a better place where you would be loved & accepted & free at last, wouldn't you be thankful?"

13. They're not going to necessarily agree‚ since they haven't gone through the hounding & the torture & the persecution, but it may stop them in their tracks & make them think of things from a different perspective; plus you get across your message of religious persecution & of a better hope with the Lord.

14. When the interviewer states, "Burning to death is not a nice way to die!" & Karen says, "No, it is not," she could have added, "But neither is being shot to death by government gunmen, or tortured to death, or seeing your children & infants gassed, having your food & water & electricity cut off, & being subjected to bright lights & hideous noises all night long."

15. Where Karen said she was very happy for her younger sister, she could have said, "I'm thankful she's out of the terrible torture & deprivation that she had to endure, & the separation from all those she loved she would have faced when the Social Services got ahold of her."

16. Where she said she was very happy for the 17 children who had perished in the fire‚ she could have added, "Because they've gone to Heaven to be with Jesus, where He can now protect them from the terrible things that the System was doing to them, & the horrible child abuse they were enduring at the hands of the FBI, who were fighting them with psychological warfare, incarcerating them in their home, smashing all their bikes, cutting off their water & electricity, endangering them by shooting into their home, & worse yet, demolishing their home with tanks & endangering their lives by toxic tear gas, & finally being responsible for setting them on fire!"

17. She could have gone on, of course, to say she was very sad for herself, that she's left alone now & she's not with them, & what a horrible tragedy the government perpetrated, & how God was going to hold them responsible for their horrible, violent persecution of her family & loved ones!

18. Where Karen says, "This is not the end for us as a people, it is only the beginning of new & better things," instead, in order to identify with all people of faith, she could have reworded it slightly to say, "As with all Christians‚ & even those of other faiths, we believe that death is not the end, it is only the beginning of a new & better life, after enduring so much pain & persecution in this one."

19. In the course of the interview, she could have, in an emotional outburst, blasted the System‚ yelling that they had murdered her sister & burned her father & that it was an atrocious act, & but for the grace of God she would never be able to forgive them! She should be enraged & rail against the System which has so hounded & persecuted them, even to their death! She should have been willing to show her sadness & her grief & rage at the vicious, insane enemies who could have done such a thing to innocent people who were just trying to live their faith in the best way they knew how.

20. As Christians‚ even though we have the peace of the Lord & the calm that He gives & the hope of seeing our loved ones, we still feel our losses greatly. Our heart breaks & we need to also show this side to the public so that they will see that we are human beings & that what they do to us hurts us deeply, but that with God's supernatural power, we can have peace & calm in the midst of storm, & have hope that some day all wrongs will be righted & that God will mete out justice to all‚ & judgement to the evil. You've got to get on people's level. You can have that peace in your heart that your loved ones are happy now & safe from this intolerable World, but you must also show your outrage at the Devil & his people for doing this kind of thing to your loved ones. She could have also mentioned that they were martyrs & died for their faith‚ like those long ago who were burned at the stake because they wouldn't renounce their faith.

21. God bless this precious girl! I think she did a beautiful job considering she probably had not been prepared for this interview, & she was just stating her faith & not trying to convince anyone. But in retrospect, we see that she could have made a stronger statement if she had tried to not only present her faith on a spiritual plane‚ but relate to her audience at the level of their carnal reasoning. Even that is pretty hard to do since so many people's minds are already made up, but it's worth a try, & some people do respond to the Truth if the "cookies are on a low enough shelf."

22. You also have the problem that antagonistic producers will edit what you say in the worst light possible. You also don't have very much time to say much. What you say has to be short & concise to get your point across quickly‚ as they usually don't let you have time to preach a sermon on TV. Of course, it won't hurt you to tell it to the interviewer. Maybe he will be open to the Truth & it will result in more fair coverage of your message. And who knows? They might use more of your interview than they were expecting to, if the Lord wants the public to hear it.

23. I wish we could encourage that dear girl. Maybe our people in California could find those folks, if they're still there, if they haven't been driven out by crazy, hateful, antagonistic townspeople making it too difficult for them to even survive. But if we could find them we could comfort them & help to show them that we appreciate them & what they're going through, & we understand & we're praying for them. Some of our teens could talk with her & show her that there are other kids in the World who believe the same way on many of the basics. She probably feels very very alone. Even though we differ with them on some major points, they lump us together with them anyway, so it's not going to hurt us to have a little bit of contact with them. People can hardly say anything worse about us than they already have! I don't think our attitude can be, "We don't want to get tarnished by associating with you, so we're going to keep our distance." Dad & I do not agree with this attitude. After all, Dad wished he could have gone there to try to encourage them. He would have if he could have.

24. So we'd better start trying to stick together! They've lumped us all together anyway, so we'd better try to help each other & defend each other & pray for each other & support each other. There must be some very good things about them for their kids to turn out that way, & their people to stick it out through that horrible time of tribulation & not backslide, not turn away. Maybe some of them did, but it's unclear whether Koresh sent them out or whether they actually just wanted to leave because they couldn't take it any longer. But I wouldn't blame them even if they couldn't take it any longer. I just think it's amazing they lasted so long! As strong as I know a person's faith can be, to me it's amazing that so many of those people stuck it out with him for so long. They must have very very strong faith‚ God bless them!

25. So what if Koresh was a little wacky, thinking he was Jesus or whatever? They must have been pretty sound in most of their other beliefs. Maybe he got off the track & got to thinking he was a little more than he was & let people give him that acclaim, but that doesn't dismiss the fact that evidently they were pretty right about a lot of things, & their children—from the few reports we've heard that managed to leak out from the Social Services—were well behaved, socially adjusted, sweet, & not abused.—These people were good, sincere people. All the little bits & pieces that have managed to leak out past the "party line" media, show that they were wonderful people, & that they evidently had followed the Word & they had a strong faith & they were living for the Lord. So what if their leader got a little tripped off? He—and they—are straightened out now! Obviously they had a strong basis in the Word, strong faith, & they've tried to follow it as best they could.

26. I'm not ashamed to defend them in the points on which they're right, & I think they're worth it. So, maybe he did get tripped off, poor guy, but he was teaching the Word & he was obviously doing the best he could, as were his followers. I think they were a wonderful example of suffering saints who went through tribulation & endured & have now overcome. Hallelujah! They're martyrs! This is showing the whole World that they were some of the first ones in the U.S. to undergo a foretaste of what the Tribulation is going to be like, in such a vivid portrayal! Of course this is just the beginning of it.—Or maybe I should say a foretaste.

27. It's like a preview of what's to come in the days ahead. It's like the grand opening of the Tribulation in the States. "Come to the debut, this is the preview, the opening night of the Great Tribulation & what it's going to be like!" Of course, lots of Christians worldwide have endured tribulation already‚ but if the U.S. wanted to see a vivid portrayal of what it's going to be like on their TV screens, they got a picture of it! The Davidians wouldn't "take the Mark," so they underwent the Antichrist System's vengeance.

28. We have endured some tribulation, in a little way, by having our Homes raided & our children taken. Other people have too. But this was like everything all together! This was the big guns coming in‚ & the whole World could see the torture & the hounding & the persecution & the children taken away & the tanks & the soldiers & the chains & the leg-irons & the fire & the noise & the lights—just everything all in one shot, where you can really see what it's going to be like. The Davidians endured it first. They took the first shot for the rest of us to show what is going to be happening. Not that it hasn't happened on a small scale & different ways countless times already, but this is the System coming out with no holds barred, not pretending any more, not trying to cover up. This was an all–out attack against the innocent "enemy" that wasn't doing anything but trying to serve God.

29. Obviously they must have been doing something pretty right for the Devil to have attacked them like that!—Because there are a lot of other people in the World who claim to be Prophets or Jesus or Gabriel or Napoleon or all kinds of other departed people. Why should they go after David Koresh with such a vengeance just because he says he's Jesus?—In other words‚ just because he's crazy, to their way of thinking. There are millions of crazy people in the World, so why attack him? He had already been cleared of child abuse charges a year before, & the American Constitution is supposed to ensure a citizen's right to bear arms.—And neither does the excuse that they thought they were going to commit mass suicide hold water either, since all the experts the government consulted assured them that whatever else these people were‚ they were not suicidal.

30. The real reason behind it all‚ of course, is that the Devil is out to get the Christians & he is starting with the cults! The Antichrist campaign against the cults has resulted in strong sentiment against them by the public, as well as ridicule, fear & hatred. Anyone with a strong faith is now considered a fanatic, & his turn will come. God have mercy on His people & judge their tormentors!—And He will!

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family