*Attention AF This is a repl

Posted by AF - Part 1 [AF] on April 10, 1999 at 14:36:37 {83dcrF/7KEtWYktmF7cQdaOt1gg/Zk}:

In Reply to: Attention AF This is a repl posted by ben1957 on April 09, 1999 at 22:24:24:

Thanks for responding.

: previous ben1957

: ... How ever if a person in full control and under no pressure "willingly" accepted a BT I would treat them as DF even if the Society said it was a conscience matter (personally I see the Bible law on Blood as Binding).

: previous AF

: I see. So you treat those who willingly take organ transplants and volunteer for alternative military service as DF'd persons. Have you no respect for the "faithful and discreet slave"? Who are you to decide what should be a matter of conscience for your fellow JWs?

: new ben1957

: Please note what I said.."if a person in full control and under no pressure "willingly" accepted a BT". I was talking about Blood Transfusions not organ transplants.

My point was that the same principle applies in each case. In each case the Society has argued - based entirely on the Bible, according to them - that the activity was wrong to the extent that people should be disfellowshipped for doing it. If they now declard that organ transplants and volunteering for alternative military service is now a matter of conscience, well, the Bible certainly hasn't changed, but I'm sure that you now go along with the Society in acknowledging the free exercise of conscience in these matters. Therefore it would be inconsistent for you to act differently if they changed their minds on blood transfusions. Furthermore, if you treated as DF'd someone who had a good standing in his congregation, you'd be going quite against the counsel of the "F&DS".

: I do respect the "faithful and discreet slave", and I was not making conscience judgements for other JWs regarding transplants. My comment was in regard to those that WILLINGLY WITHOUT ANY PRESSURE FROM ANYONE ELSE, had a blood transfusion.

I know that; you simply missed my illustrative point.

: You must know something that I do not in regard to transplants for I have found no where in any WTBTS literature where organ transplants are forbidden.

They were not forbidden as explicitly as blood transfusions are, you're correct. Nevertheless they were forbidden and people were subject to DF'ing for having transplants. I'll show this below, using material you yourself have brought forth. Do keep in mind that nowhere in publicly available WTS literature was volunteering for alternative military service explicitly called out as a DF'ing matter. Yet, the May 1, 1996 WT allowed this for the first time by saying it was a matter of conscience.

: In 1967 there was a question from readers regarding transplants. The question was "Is there any Scriptural objection to donating one's body for use in medical research or to accepting organs for transplant from such a source?".

Right. This was the Society's new policy on organ transplants. I was 16 years old and just baptized when this stupid policy came out. I objected strenuously and spoke to several "servants" (what elders were called at the time) about it. All agreed that one could be DF'd for taking a transplant; the matter was that serious. Every JW I spoke to until the policy was reversed in 1980 also understood that it was a DF'ing matter. These days, many JWs pretend that it was not such a serious matter, just as they pretend that the Society didn't strongly encourage many to believe that 1975* would bring "the end of the system of things". I was very much involved in JW life back then, so don't try to tell me that I didn't experience what I did.

* Note on 1975: Huge numbers of quotations from WTS literature can be brought forth to prove that the WTS instigated this belief among JWs, even though some didn't buy it. Most did buy it, including me and all of my family and friends that I knew of. In the context of encouraging this belief, note what the 1971 book "The Nations Shall Know that I Am Jehovah" - How? said, on page 216: "Shortly, within our twentieth century, the `battle in the day of Jehovah' will begin against the modern antitype of Jerusalem, Christendom." In 1971 we understood "shortly" to mean "within 4 years".

: It is true that the answer made the point (as many people like to draw attention too) that transplants were on a par with cannibalism. Please remember that transplants were still relatively new at this time.

That should have been all the more reason for the Society to keep its nose where it didn't belong.

: But please notice these two quotes from that article.

: 1) "Whether wider use of such operations will be made, we do not know. Nor can we decide whether a Christian should accept some animal part as a transplant; that is for personal decision"

: and 2) "They can consider the divine principles recorded in the Scriptures and use these in making personal decisions as they look to God for direction". The article discussed many Bible principles for Christians to consider but clearly leaves it up to the INDIVIDUAL TO DECIDE. This personal decition was to be used in regard to animal and/or human transplants.

Man, have you been snookered! The Society claims in exactly the same way that taking a blood transfusion is a matter of conscience and personal choice. They used to claim the same thing about alternative military service and they still do about joining the military. Nevertheless, a JW will be DF'd for willfully violating the Society's current policy on these "matters of conscience". Your problem is that you don't recognize weasel words and doublespeak when the Society practices it.

You won't find any direct mention in WTS literature that a person will be DF'd for joining the military. Nevertheless, anyone who becomes a JW knows that a JW will be DF'd - or more technically, will be declared to have "disassociated" himself, which is just another name for the same thing. The language goes like this: "You Know, by his chosen course of violating Christian neutrality, no longer desires to be one of Jehovah's Witnesses". Henceforth he will be treated exactly the same as a DF'd person. Here's the WT reference:

*** w72 2/15 123-4 Living a Dedicated Life ***
Jehovah's allowing the individual to take whatever course he chooses is actually part of the test of integrity. The person has his freedom of will. If he takes a course violating his Christian neutrality, he is denying God as his Master, and he is walking out on God and his congregation. He is certainly not leading a dedicated life. The congregation is not the one that publicly disfellowshiped him. He takes himself out, dissociates himself.

That's essentially how it worked with someone who got an organ transplant.

As for cannibalism, the Society long before 1967 declared it to be a gross violation of God's laws, equating it with murder and so on. Note the following references with my comments:

*** w50 5/15 158-9 Letter ***
Of course, God's prohibition against drinking the blood by Noah and his descendants applied only to the lower animals, because God authorized man to kill and eat the flesh of such animals. He did not authorize man to kill human creatures and to eat their flesh like cannibals, and therefore he did not have to state a law against drinking human blood or against having a blood transfusion from one human organism into another organism. (Genesis 9:1-6) If transfusion of human blood in the modern way was not practiced back there in Noah's day or in Moses' day, there was no need for God to expressly state a law against it; just the same as he included no law against smoking tobacco in his commandments to his typical people. But that is not saying or proving that the fundamental essence of his law is not against such things.

The above contains all the justification that JWs needed to conclude from the 1967 WT article that organ transplants were a matter for DF'ing. Why? Because the basis for prohibiting organ transplants and blood transfusions had the common factor of Genesis 9:1-6. Note how the 1967 WT article stated matters:

*** w67 11/15 702 Questions from Readers ***
When Jehovah for the first time allowed humans to eat animal flesh, he explained matters this way to Noah: "A fear of you and a terror of you will continue upon every living creature of the earth and upon every flying creature of the heavens, upon everything that goes moving on the ground, and upon all the fishes of the sea. Into your hand they are now given. Every moving animal that is alive may serve as food for you. As in the case of green vegetation, I do give it all to you. Only flesh with its soul-its blood-you must not eat." (Gen. 9:2-4) That allowance was made to Noah, from whom every person now alive descended. Hence, it applies to all of us.

Humans were allowed by God to eat animal flesh and to sustain their human lives by taking the lives of animals, though they were not permitted to eat blood. Did this include eating human flesh, sustaining one's life by means of the body or part of the body of another human, alive or dead? No! That would be cannibalism, a practice abhorrent to all civilized people. Jehovah clearly made a distinction between the lives of animals and the lives of humans, mankind being created in God's image, with his qualities. (Gen. 1:27) This distinction is evident in His next words. God proceeded to show that man's life is sacred and is not to be taken at will, as may be done with the animals to be used for food. To show disrespect for the sanctity of human life would make one liable to have his own life taken.-Gen. 9:5, 6.

The Society here had explicitly stated that it was a violation of the sanctity of human life to practice cannibalism, and that according to Genesis 9:5, 6 a person who took an organ transplant was subject to having his own life taken. In other words, they explicitly stated that anyone who had an organ transplant was the equivalent of a murderer by virtue of eating human flesh that was not his to eat. Of course, a murderer must be disfellowshipped.

The Society had long taught that cannibalism was abhorrent to Jehovah and that blood transfusions were a form of cannibalism:

*** w51 7/1 414 Questions from Readers ***
Do not these prohibitions about blood apply only to animal blood, and not to human blood?
Certainly Jehovah did not tell his people to drain human bodies of blood before eating them, since he was not authorizing cannibalism. Hence while animal blood was the primary consideration in the foregoing scriptures, do not overlook that the recorded prohibitions were against "any manner of blood", that they were to eat "no manner of blood", the "blood of no manner of flesh". That embraces human flesh.

*** w66 7/1 400-1 Exercising Maturity-A Safeguard ***
In the matter of blood, we must start basically at the initial pronouncement against it, where eating blood was forbidden to mankind. (Gen. 9:4) ... Are you one to whom disobeying God's law is repulsive? Then the taking of blood is just as despicable to you as cannibalism. Think of eating of the flesh of another human creature! It is shocking! Is drinking human blood any different? Does bypassing the mouth and putting it directly into the veins change it? Not at all!

Similarly, the Society teaches today that cannibalism is abhorrent to God and is associated with all sorts of horrible practices:

*** g92 11/8 6 A Balanced View of Entertainment ***
American Psycho details the gruesome acts of a serial killer who practices unspeakably ghastly things, including cannibalism, with the bodies of his victims.

*** g91 3/22 29 Watching the World ***
"Reports of satanic rituals, long dismissed as impossible, are increasingly frequent and disturbingly consistent," reports The Globe and Mail of Canada. Such reports include sexual abuse, cannibalism, and human sacrifices.

*** it-1 809 Famine ***
Actual starvation may have a dehumanizing effect, resulting in theft, murder, and even cannibalism.

*** it-1 840 Flesh ***
Cannibalism, the eating of human flesh, naturally repugnant to the human mind, was abhorred by God and his ancient covenant people Israel. ... Neither could they eat the flesh of an animal torn by a wild beast, or one that died of itself. These would be detestable, besides not being properly drained of blood.

*** it-2 271 Lord's Evening Meal ***
Furthermore, eating actual human flesh and blood would be cannibalism. Therefore, Jews who were not exercising faith and who did not properly understand Jesus' statement about eating his flesh and drinking his blood were shocked. This indicated the Jewish view on eating human flesh and blood, as inculcated by the Law.-Joh 6:60.

*** w94 2/1 7 Agents of Evil ***
The news is bloated with stories of drugs, murder, bombing, psychopathic cannibalism, massacres, famine, and torture.

*** w91 6/15 10 Saving Life With Blood-How? ***
Of course, back then blood was not being transfused, for experiments with transfusions began only near the 16th century. Yet, in the 17th century, a professor of anatomy at the University of Copenhagen objected: 'Those who drag in the use of human blood for internal remedies of diseases appear to misuse it and to sin gravely. Cannibals are condemned. Why do we not abhor those who stain their gullet with human blood? Similar is the receiving of alien blood from a cut vein, either through the mouth or by instruments of transfusion. The authors of this operation are held in terror by the divine law.'

Between 1967 and 1980 the Society published various comments on the connection between cannibalism, blood transfusions, and gross violations of God's laws. Here are two:

*** w74 7/1 394 Insight on the News ***
Stay Alive-At Any Cost?
Cannibalism is generally thought of as something of the uncivilized past. In October 1972, however, following a plane crash high in the Andes mountains of Chile, some of the survivors stayed alive during the next ten weeks by eating parts of their dead companions' bodies. ...
The Bible shows that God granted men the right to eat animal flesh-not that of fellow humans. (Gen. 9:3; compare Leviticus 26:27-29.) There is no doubt that the survivors experienced a trying, harrowing ordeal. But the idea that 'the end justifies the means' does not harmonize with the Bible. On that reasoning, men in dictatorial lands followed orders that caused them to commit atrocities. To disobey, they reasoned, would have been "suicidal." But Christ Jesus showed that attempts to save one's life in ways out of harmony with God's will can only lead to loss of God's favor. Death in integrity, however, assures a resurrection to life in a righteous new order.-Mark 8:35; John 6:39, 40.

*** w74 11/15 684 Insight on the News ***
One Thing Leads to Another
Decades ago, the transfusing of one person's blood into another's veins became a common practice. Then the transplanting of organs came into vogue. Where might this all lead? An article by the president of the Institute of Society, Ethics and the Life Sciences, entitled "Harvesting the Dead," gives some idea. ... In contrast, the Bible inculcates respect for people's bodies, even for those actually dead (not just in an "irreversible coma"). (Gen. 23:1-6; 49:29; 50:24-26; 1 Sam. 31:8-13) But men today contemplate wholesale 'cannibalizing' of bodies. And even that seems too mild a term-for cannibals never maintained "farms" of human bodies to be "harvested." This shows where things can lead once men begin to violate Bible standards, including its prohibition of taking the blood of another creature into one's own body.-See Deuteronomy 12:23; Acts 15:28, 29.

Now I will present some of the other important parts of the 1967 WT article that you neglected to consider. Again this is from w67 11/15 702-4 "Questions from Readers", answering the question, "Is there any Scriptural objection to donating one's body for use in medical research or to accepting organs for transplant from such a source?"

A number of issues are involved in this matter, including the propriety of organ transplants and autopsies. Quite often human emotion is the only factor considered when individuals decide these matters. It would be good, though, for Christians to consider the Scriptural principles that apply, and then make decisions in harmony with these principles so as to be pleasing to Jehovah.-Acts 24:16.

What "Christian principles" did the article present? That cannibalism is just as abhorrent to Jehovah as murder, eating blood and cannibalism. If the first two are DF'ing offenses, then so must the third. I already quoted certain relevant parts of the article that prove this, and here are more:

... Those who submit to such operations are thus living off the flesh of another human. That is cannibalistic. However, in allowing man to eat animal flesh Jehovah God did not grant permission for humans to try to perpetuate their lives by cannibalistically taking into their bodies human flesh, whether chewed or in the form of whole organs or body parts taken from others. ...
What should be done, though, when a Christian is asked to provide an organ for use in another person or to allow the body part of a deceased loved one to be so used? We might ask, If a Christian decided personally that he would not sustain his own life with the flesh of another imperfect human, could he conscientiously allow part of his flesh to be used in that way to sustain someone else?

Note how the last question and answer is phrased: it is done such that the reader is assumed to have made a decision in line with the teaching of the rest of the article. And what is that? That it would be abhorrent from God's standpoint to take an organ transplant, and thus to donate an organ.

Note how the article deals further with the question of donating organs:

When it comes to deciding what to do with one's own body or with the body of a deceased loved one, for which a Christian is responsible, the apostle Paul's words at Romans 12:1 should not be overlooked: "I entreat you by the compassions of God, brothers, to present your bodies a sacrifice living, holy, acceptable to God, a sacred service with your power of reason." Baptized Christians have dedicated their lives, bodies included, to do the will of Jehovah their Creator. In view of this, can such a person donate his body or part of it for unrestricted use by doctors or others? Does a human have a God-given right to dedicate his body organs to scientific experimentation? Is it proper for him to allow such to be done with the body of a loved one? These are questions worthy of serious consideration.

Clearly the expected answer to the questions is No! To answer Yes would be to accede to "violating what is holy", according to the direction the writer is taking. Exactly the same reasoning was used several years later in declaring smoking a disfellowshipping offense.

In view of the above material, the article's final conclusion takes on a rather different meaning than what you had thought:

It should be evident from this discussion that Christians who have been enlightened by God's Word do not need to make these decisions simply on the basis of personal whim or emotion. They can consider the divine principles recorded in the Scriptures and use these in making personal decisions as they look to God for direction, trusting him and putting their confidence in the future that he has in store for those who love him.-Prov. 3:5, 6; Ps. 119:105.

Clearly, a "personal decision" to take an organ transplant would be a gross violation of God's law, just as would be directly eating human flesh in the form of meat or blood, and would be the equivalent of murder. Such would necessarily be a disfellowshipping matter.

Now we get back to your discussion:

: A question from readers in March 15 1980 asked "Should congregation action be taken if a baptized Christian accepts a human organ transplant, such as of a cornea or a kidney?"

: After discussing similar material to the 1967 article, the bottom line of the reply was..."....For this reason, each individual faced with making a decision on this matter should carefully and prayerfully weigh matters and then decide conscientiously what he or she could or could not do before God. It is a matter for personal decision. (Gal. 6:5) The congregation judicial committee would not take disciplinary action if someone accepted an organ transplant."

Once again you've completely missed the point of the WT article. This was a reversal of the older policy, and it cancelled out the unpublished but nevertheless real policy of DF'ing people who had organ transplants. If the practice had never been something that a "congregation judicial committee" might take disciplinary action for, the 1980 article would never have mentioned it. The 1980 article informed elders that they were no longer to take disciplinary action against those who had organ transplants.

The 1980 article replayed most of the possible objections to organ transplants that were raised in the 1967 article. In contrast, it also set forth brand new reasoning that for the first time gave JWs a possible means of countering the old objections. In other words, rather than dictating what someone's conscience should tell them, it set forth alternatives and truly allowed a person to choose. That brand new, real choice necessarily dictated a removal of the DF'ing penalty for not falling in line with the old choice that the Society dictated.

Compare the language in the 1980 article with that in the 1996 WT article which for the first time allowed JWs to voluntarily choose alternative military service. The old policy was that anyone who volunteered for such service had violated "Christian neutrality" and must be disfellowshipped or declared to have disassociated:

*** w96 5/1 20 Paying Back Caesar's Things to Caesar ***
What if the Christian's honest answers to such questions lead him to conclude that the national civilian service is a "good work" that he can perform in obedience to the authorities? That is his decision before Jehovah. Appointed elders and others should fully respect the conscience of the brother and continue to regard him as a Christian in good standing. If, however, a Christian feels that he cannot perform this civilian service, his position should also be respected. He too remains in good standing and should receive loving support.

End of Part 1

AF

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