St. John's Telegram
May 19, 2002 Sunday Final Edition
SECTION: Religion & Faith; Hans Rollmann; Pg. A10
LENGTH: 987 words
HEADLINE: Does the Bible prohibit blood transfusions?
SOURCE: Special to The Telegram
BYLINE: Hans Rollmann
BODY:
Some Jewish men gathered in an upper room in the crowded city of Jerusalem about the year 47, in order to work out their
differences in matters of Christian teaching and observance. They could hardly imagine that their compromise would have such
serious consequences for a young woman of 16 and her 51-year-old father in Calgary in 2002.
Their settlement of a dispute in the Christian congregation of Antioch was intended to reunite a seriously divided church in Syria
and Cilicia and to breathe new life into the Christian mission in Asia Minor and beyond. One understanding of that compromise
could possibly now bring death to a young Jehovah's Witness suffering from leukemia in Alberta. As I listened to this girl's firm,
convinced voice on the radio, saying that to undergo a blood transfusion would deny her faith, and then heard her tortured and
shunned father say that to refuse his daughter this medical treatment would be irresponsible, I asked what matter of faith lies
behind this recurrent and troublesome issue. Is the Bible indeed counselling that no Christian should receive a blood transfusion?
In Acts of the Apostles, chapter 15, the crucial text for the refusal of Jehovah's Witnesses to allow blood transfusions, we meet
two parties in council, seeking to solve a problem. From the beginning, Christ's message was understood and interpreted in
different ways. Jewish Christians saw in Jesus the promised Messiah but felt obliged to continue observing Jewish ceremonial and
dietary law. Paul, born a Jew in Cilicia and "born out of season" as a Christian missionary, offered an alternative, liberating
message that, for those living outside Judaism, "both Jews and Greeks," Christ's good news could be believed and experienced
directly without observing the requirements of Jewish law.
ADAPTING JEWISH LAW
In Antioch, a mixed congregation of Christians from pagan and Jewish backgrounds had worshiped side by side until their peace
was rudely disturbed by more radical Jewish Christians, some having links with factions in Jerusalem. Paul, taking with him
Barnabas, a former member of the Jerusalem congregation, went to Jerusalem to discuss the problems in Antioch with the Jewish
Christian leadership, including Jesus' own brother James and Peter the Rock. The Jerusalem "pillars" approved Paul's
understanding of the proper relation of Gentile Christians to Jewish law and validated his mission to Gentiles. As Paul recalled the
meeting later, "They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the Jews." (Galatians 2:9)
What then should be done in churches where Christians of Jewish and Gentile backgrounds met together for worship and
common meals? Some concessions had to be made. Jewish Christians found particularly obnoxious certain Gentile eating habits.
Their law specified that meat from animals that still contained the lifeblood and had not been drained of it properly could not be
consumed. In the Hebrew Bible Jews were forbidden to "eat the blood of any bird or animal" (Leviticus 7:26). Ancient Jews
reasoned that "the life of the creature is in the blood" (Leviticus 17:11). They believed that blood contained the life force itself and
had to be separated from meat before meat could be eaten.
Paul and the Jerusalem leadership agreed to a solution recorded in Acts 15:28-29, that they would not burden Gentile Christians
with the observance of the Jewish law except that they should not offend their Jewish brothers and sisters and thus abstain from
"food sacrificed to idols and from blood" as well as "from the meat of strangled animals." It is the prohibition against ingesting
blood that Jehovah's Witnesses understand to include blood transfusions as well.
NO ISSUE FOR SOME
For many Christians, this prohibition is no issue at all since they will interpret it as resting on ancient, prescientific assumptions
about the life-force and blood. Even among Christians for whom the Bible remains a commanding authority, or for whom its
words cannot be dismissed easily, the prohibition against ingesting blood was in the first place a concession in the service of
peaceful coexistence. In times and places where Christians are no longer in such a conflict situation and need no longer respect the
uneasy conscience of any fellow Christian about blood, the problem hardly persists.
Indeed, we may ask whether the original prohibition against "eating blood" even includes the modern medical practice of blood
transfusions. Eating blood or ritually unclean meat is a dietary matter and quite different from the medical practice of transfusing
blood to replace what is lost or contaminated. Even the early leadership of the Jehovah's Witnesses understood this distinction.
Jehovah's Witnesses have only adopted such a prohibition fairly recently. Their founder, Charles Taze Russell, did not consider
the Jewish dietary laws binding on Christians. Only since Clayton J. Woodward became editor of the Jehovah's Witness journal
Golden Age/Consolation and its successor Awake have particular medical practices such as vaccinations and blood transfusions
become objectionable to the Witnesses' belief system. Only in 1945 did they ban blood transfusions. In the meantime, presumably
under pressure, Jehovah's Witnesses have again allowed certain blood products such as hemoglobin to be administered medically.
More than likely, if we were to tell James, Peter, Barnabas, and Paul about the consequences in 21st-century Calgary of their
solution to church troubles in 1st-century Antioch, they might well shake their heads and shed tears of disbelief and grief. They
scarcely intended that their compromise of yesteryear should become an issue of life and death for some Christians today.
Hans Rollmann is a professor of religious studies at Memorial University of Newfoundland. He can be reached by e-mail
[email protected] or phone 753-0045.
LOAD-DATE: May 20, 2002