by Marvin Shilmer 29 Replies latest jw friends
Thanks Marvin.
Question. In your opinion, where do you see the blood issue going down the road? Do you see them slowly over time "easing" the rules? Or do you think there just going to stick with what they have, seeing that they can't allow anymore wiggle room to the rules?
Axelspeed,
You write:
“I remember this clearly, and yes it was a major deal for me.”
It was a big deal for quite a few back when it occurred. Unfortunately the event has been lost on many due to neglect of the subject. This is one reason I included the topic in my blog.
It’s good to hear from you again.
Marvin Shilmer
When that incident came to light, it did have a strong effect on me. It was one more nail in the coffin.
Whereami,
You write:
“In your opinion, where do you see the blood issue going down the road? Do you see them slowly over time "easing" the rules? Or do you think there just going to stick with what they have, seeing that they can't allow anymore wiggle room to the rules?”
Eventually the doctrine will die. Whether slow or fast is impossible to tell.
The community of Jehovah’s Witnesses has never fully embraced this debacle of a doctrine. In recall in 1995 Watchtower sent out a letter containing a list of information elders should have answers to before contacting Watchtower’s Hospital Liaison Committee. One item on that list was/is to learn “how resolute” the Witness patient is to refuse blood.
Think about what that means. Why would elders need to learn whether or how resolute a Witness is to refuse blood unless there were Witnesses who were not resolute or less than resolute to refuse blood?
HLC members are organized to build a good image with medical providers. The last thing Watchtower wants them involved with is an open conflict between them and Witness patients about the doctrine. This would leave unmistakable impression of coercion, and it would leave no doubt about whether the Witness community is unanimous on the blood issue; it is not.
Watchtower just wants this thing to go away. They don’t really care how, so long as it goes away. But if they just dump it outright, its religion business would go bad and quick.
Marvin Shilmer
Actually this is a big issue. It would allow JWs to get their own blood. I guess someone in the highest places most have complained an the whole thing had to be reverted. This had to be big because it would involve making a recall of cards from all congregations and to do that im sure it required big heavy signatures. not to mention a change in doctrine that big.
It would be interesting to find out. I wonder who died right before the recall. or who got booted after the printing of the new cards
Marvin, this is a great expose. It's yet another arrow in our quiver that is full of Watchtower contradictions (flip-flops). Hey, we all know about how Watchtower despises contradictory teachings -- they despise them as shown by the following Watchtower quotation.
"Why must we accept everything that the churches teach when many of the teachings are confusing and contradictory?" The Watchtower, 2003, 12/1 p. 4.
They've even gone so far as to claim they don't do it themselves.
"However, it may have seemed to some as though that path has not always gone straight forward. At times explanations given by Jehovah’s visible organization have shown adjustments, seemingly to previous points of view. But this has not actually been the case. This might be compared to what is known in navigational circles as "tacking." By maneuvering the sails the sailors can cause a ship to go from right to left, back and forth, but all the time making progress toward their destination in spite of contrary winds." The Watchtower, 1981, 12/1 p. 27
Of course, we know different and thanks to this well organized arrangement of their own writings that you've put together, Marvin -- we have another great tool. Who knows how many lurker JWs will see this as yet another chink in Watchtower armor.
Len Miller
Marking...
And as others have said, thank you, Marvin Shilmer, for posting this...
I agree with Finally-Free:
"Possibly because few of the rank and file members knew about it. I never heard of this until today. ..."
I was way past being "out" when this happened, but like the fascination of Charles Taze Russell with the heathen Great Pyramid, this was something that would have caused me to say, "What the FRICK??" if I'd run across it while a JW...
My opinion as to what happened? A JW relative of the GB needed a blood transfusion for a life-saving operation and to assist the doctors, the wording was adjusted to allow them to use the patients own blood.
Moshe,
You write:
“My opinion as to what happened? A JW relative of the GB needed a blood transfusion for a life-saving operation and to assist the doctors, the wording was adjusted to allow them to use the patients own blood.”
I have heard rumor to that effect, but never anything I could nail down. On the other hand, a friend gave me his own firsthand account of heated talk going on between various governing body members about the whole blood issue. If that accounting is true then more than likely the change and subsequent revert occurred as a result of one faction winning and then losing support.
Marvin Shilmer
I first smelled a rat back in 1980 when the organ transplan rules were changed and I later suspected that a high up JW's relative needed an organ transplant- like a kidney transplant- and new light flashed up from Jehoobah to clear the way for a life saving organ transplant operation. The GB didn't make these changes without an outside driving force- IMO.
