The Branch Davidians are a Protestant sect that originated in 1955 from a schism

Schism (religion)

A schism , from Greek σχίσμα, skhísma , is a division between people, usually belonging to an organization or movement religious denomination. The word is most frequently applied to a break of communion between two sections of Christianity that were previously a single body, or to a division within...

 in the Davidian Seventh Day Adventists

Shepherd's Rod

The Shepherd's Rod is a message believed and adopted by Davidian Seventh-day Adventists or Davidians, and authored by Victor T. Houteff . Davidians have claimed themselves a part of the Seventh Day Adventist Church but the majority were disfellowshipped because they follow the interpretations by...

 ("Davidians"), a reform movement that began within the Seventh-day Adventist Church

Seventh-day Adventist Church

The Seventh-day Adventist Church is a Protestant Christian denomination distinguished by its observance of Saturday, the original seventh day of the Judeo-Christian week, as the Sabbath, and by its emphasis on the imminent second coming of Jesus Christ...

 ("Adventists") around 1930. The majority of those who accepted the reform message have been disfellowshipped due to the Adventist church rejecting it.

From its inception in 1930, the reform movement inherited Adventism's apocalypticism, in that they believed themselves to be living in a time when Bible

Bible

The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

 prophecies of a final divine judgment were coming to pass as a prelude to Christ's second coming

Second Coming

In Christian doctrine, the Second Coming of Christ, the Second Advent, or the Parousia, is the anticipated return of Jesus Christ from Heaven, where he sits at the Right Hand of God, to Earth. This prophecy is found in the canonical gospels and in most Christian and Islamic eschatologies...

.