BLOOD -- WTS Questions and Sound Answers 6
Does the majority of JWs accept all the important details of the WTS? teaching on blood?
*** w04 6/15 p. 24 Be Guided By The Living God *** ??Moreover, some products derived from one of the four primary components may be so similar to the function of the whole component and carry on such a life-sustaining role in the body that most Christians would find them objectionable.? (Underlining added)
The WTS? blood teaching requires JWs to respect fellow JWs that conscientiously accept hemoglobin solutions from blood and it requires JWs to shun fellow JWs that conscientiously accept red cell solutions from blood. This is true regardless of whether most JWs object to conscientious acceptance of hemoglobin solutions.
Admitting that ?most? JWs may object to acceptance of solutions that the WTS dictates respect for the acceptance of dismisses any suggestion that the WTS? blood teaching mirrors the beliefs of the majority of JWs.
So, does the majority of JWs accept important details of the WTS? teaching on blood? According to the Watchtower article quoted above, the majority may not accept an important distinction in the WTS? teaching on blood. The fact that the WTS admits that most JWs may object to details of what its teaching accepts the use of from blood tells us that the Governing Body of JWs does not teach what JWs believe based on what JWs believe, yet Watchtower journals advertise themselves as mirroring the beliefs of JWs.(1) This admission from the Governing Body of JWs is an admission that it is untrue that edicts of the Governing Body represent the autonomous view or views of most JWs; they may not. If true then physicians can hardly be blamed for questioning whether specifics of the WTS? teaching on blood are held by individual JWs.
Marvin Shilmer
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Reference:
1. ??There is certainly no objection to stamping the publications with the words ?Beliefs of Jehovah?s witnesses? because we are proud of what we believe, which is based on God?s Word of truth.? ? Anonymous, Opposed Pure Worship Flourishes in Eastern Mediterranean Lands, The Watchtower, Watchtower Bible & Tract Society, Inc. 1952 4/15: 239