Elders "help" a JW who takes blood
EVASIVE and deceptive is the only way to describe The Watchtower's answer to a question from doctors as to what would happen "if a Witness wavered and accepted a blood transfusion? Would he be ostracized by the Witness community?" The Watchtower's response uses language that sends a strong warning to JW readers while giving outsiders the impression that the emphasis would be on "help" and "understanding":
The response would depend on the actual situation, for disobeying God's law certainly is a serious matter, something for the congregation's elders to examine. The Witnesses would want to help any person who has undergone the traumatic experience of life-threatening surgery and who has accepted a transfusion. Doubtless such a Witness would feel very bad and be concerned about his relationship with God. Such a person may need help and understanding. Since the backbone of Christianity is love, the elders would want, as in all judicial cases, to temper firmness with mercy.JWs, of course, grasp that this means they would stand trial before a judicial committee, while outsiders reading these words miss the frightening implications. (See Dictionary of J.W.ese on current order form.)
-- The Watchtower February 15, 1997, page 20
Blood ban NOT "subject to periodic review"
The stand of the Witnesses respecting the sanctity of blood is a doctrinal belief rather than an ethical viewpoint subject to periodic review, he was told. The clear Biblical command leaves no room for compromise. (Acts 15:28, 29) Violating such a divine law would be as unacceptable to a Witness as condoning idolatry or fornication.
-- The Watchtower February 15, 1997, page 20
Interestingly, though, the Society once taught similarly that its ban on vaccinations was divine law, but has since dropped that ban:
Vaccination is a direct violation of the everlasting covenant that God made with Noah after the flood.
-- The Golden Age February 4, 1931, page 293
The fact is that, although the conservatives presently controlling the JW Governing Body may not bring up the sect's ban on blood for "periodic review," the ban could be dropped in the future whenever new members on the Governing Body are able to muster the needed two-thirds majority vote -- just as the longstanding ban on young men accepting alternative service assignments from their draft boards was recently dropped. (See Summer 1996 issue of Comments from the Friends.)
Copyright © 1997 by David A. Reed, all rights reserved. Clipart copyright © by Corel Corp., Metro Creative Graphics, Inc., Metro ImageBase, Inc., T/Maker, Zedcor, Inc., et al., used with permission.