by JWoods 6 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
It just occurs to me that it is a little strange that the JW religion makes such an enormous issue out of blood transfusions, but there seems to be very little editorializing in the publications on the issue of abortion -
I know they are against it on principle, but why so little public position? Maybe because that moral ground is already taken by many fundamentalists, and they just can't stand to not be the one and only voice on the subject?
The majority of christian sects are against abortion, nothing special about that. Blood transfusions? Disfellowshipping people? Biblical mathematics? Now those are subjects that set JDubs apart from your average christian sect, and they use these and other issues to set themselves apart (when in reality, its the same coin, just a different side).
So there is no real need to speak up about abortion, there is no real grey area (for the jdubs) about it. Their doctrine on blood transfusions changes frequently, so they spend alot of time explaining current beliefs and downplaying the old ones.
Just my opinion anyway...
JW's seem to me to be pretty quiet on issues that are charged politically.
Besides abortion, (Which they are against) another issue is capital punishment. (Which they are for) Many JW's don't even know that their organization has a position on the latter of the two.
(JW's believe capital punishment is right and proper because, A: They believe it was enjoined upon mankind at Genesis 9:6 and B: They believe is was part of God's 'perfect' law code given to Israel. )
They would have a problem to criticize abortion because of some of their doctrines. The teaching that people do not have a soul but that they take breath and become a soul would mean that a fetus has no soul and is not a living soul, and therefore being aborted would not be murder. Insisting it is murder would erode their doctrine about the soul, so they are stuck in being silent about abortion. Then they have that blood doctrine, which has caused them to find acceptable a "40th trimester abortion" with living breathing children who would presumably be a living soul. This practice undermines any moral credibility to criticize aborting a soulless mass of fetal tissue.
*** w97 6/15 p. 31 Questions From Readers ***Such injustices did not move Paul or Peter to argue that capital punishment is fundamentally immoral. Rather, God’s thought on the matter is that as long as the superior authorities of Caesar exist, they ‘bear the sword to express wrath upon the ones practicing what is bad.’ That includes applying the sword in the sense of employing capital punishment. But when it comes to the controversial question of whether any government of this world should exercise its right to execute murderers, genuine Christians remain carefully neutral. Unlike the clergy of Christendom, they keep out of any debate on this subject.
As with everything in JWs.... its only wrong if it becomes public knowledge.
*** w97 6/15 p. 31 Questions From Readers ***Such injustices did not move Paul or Peter to argue that capital punishment is fundamentally immoral. Rather, God’s thought on the matter is that as long as the superior authorities of Caesar exist, they ‘bear the sword to express wrath upon the ones practicing what is bad.’ That includes applying the sword in the sense of employing capital punishment. But when it comes to the controversial question of whether any government of this world should exercise its right to execute murderers, genuine Christians remain carefully neutral. Unlike the clergy of Christendom, they keep out of any debate on this subject.
So, could we extend Blondie's reference on "neutrality on capital punishment" to also mean that the so-called superior authorities (in the mind of Watchtower logic) also have the right to legalize or even promote abortions? I can see where this would not really be such a giant leap of reasoning for the WTS clergy.
Pretty big stuff, if this is actually lurking under the layered mess of Watchtower doctrine - it would certainly put them into a bind with almost all other Christian religions...particularly Catholics and fundamentalists.
