Besieging The Messiah

HOW DOES ONE INDUCE THE MESSIAH TO SURRENDER to an unbelieving world he just knows is likely to clap him in jail for life? Federal authorities besieging the compound of the Branch Davidian cult outside Waco, Texas, have found no answers. After the Feb. 28 shoot-out that led to perhaps 14 deaths, the feds are loath to rush the cult’s heavily armed compound again. Interminable telephone talks with cult leader David Koresh have got nowhere. Koresh did let Kathryn Schroeder, whose husband died in the shoot-out, and an adult man, the first to be let go, come out Friday. That left, it is thought, 88 adults and 17 children inside. Even so, as the siege dragged into its third week, Koresh sounded eager for an apocalypse.