A Blood Problem

I have been working on this topic for a couple of weeks, but a post by The Spanish Inquisitor about Indoctrination jump started me to finish this post.

One of the biggest arguments my wife and I have ever had was about blood transfusions.  As previously mentioned, my wife had gotten out of The Truth when we were first together.  By the time she was pregnant with our second child she was once again involved in her religion.  I was still new to JW’s and what they believed, and one day she made a passing statement that if anything happened in delivery that she couldn’t have a blood transfusion.  This was the first time I had heard this and it was baffling to me.  She brought home some literature for me to read about it, and it is still as baffling to me today as it was then.

The Bible verses they claim support this belief are Genesis 9:4, Leviticus 17:12-14, Acts 15:20 & 29, and Acts 21:25.

Now, I am not the expert of the Bible that some on a number of blogs I read are.  I am not a reformed Christian that read the Bible for a number of years before realizing I didn’t believe it.  I read it when I was younger and decided I didn’t believe in it, and rarely picked it up after that, until I met my wife. 

First and foremost, I don’t believe the Bible so no matter how many verses she would show me I would disagree.  But to me, even if I was a Christian, it seems obvious to me that the verses are talking about different things occuring in a much older and different world. 

Gen 9:4 “But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat“–seems to say that you cannot eat meat with blood, or basically eat raw meat.

Lev 17:12-14 “You shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh“–where they get this to mean blood transfusions I have no idea, and while it says flesh, which by itself in our terms today would seem to mean human, the verse before is talking of beast and fowl, which clearly implies (to me anyway) when you hunt you must cook the meat. 

Acts 15: 20 & 29; 21:25 ”Abstain from blood“–This is very vague.  But two thousand years ago, blood transfusions were not even thought of.  Taken into that context with the verses from the OT, it seems to be a reinforcement to not consume animal blood.

From these verses the main point that gets across to me is the consumption of blood.  If you go to the Watchtower website they have an absurd article discussing the history of blood transfusions.  They probably had a lot of support during the 80’s and 90’s with many news stories of tainted blood with AIDS and hepatitis.  And, without belittling the people effected by these tragedies, many lives are saved by blood transfusions every day.  The Watchtower Society was also against organ transplants for a number of years, claiming it bordered on cannibalism.  Yet, in 1980 they quietly revoked that decision and now even praise it.  Some JW’s are coming out against the blood transfusion decision and are trying to get them to change their ways.  If you are a JW and you question these issues I highly recommend this site.

This brings me back to the main focus of this post.  At the time, I could not convince my wife in a worse case scenario to get a blood transfusion.  This was a little worrisome.  Even though realistically blood transfusions are rare, one of the more common instances where they are performed is on mothers during a baby’s delivery.  Fortunately, we found a doctor who was willing to go a bloodless route if necessary, and it was unneeded anyway.  But now there is the next argument.  What happens if one of our children ever need a transfusion?  Once again, statistically they will probably not need one as a youth, if ever.  But as a parent, you always have it in the back of your mind.  What if?  And the last thing you want is a husband and wife having a throw down argument in the middle of a hospital.  After some research I found that until the age of 12, most states will get a court order if needed in such situations to allow hospitals to get blood transfusions.  But even before I layed that out, my wife conceded if the situation were to ever happen, she would allow the transfusions until they were baptised in the Truth, and then it would be up to them.  Another small victory for me.  And because of the non-chalance of this writing, it may seem as if this was an easy win, but this was a large fight with a lot of screaming.  By my wife of course, I am a mellow easy going dude 

However this still brings up some issues I may have in the future with my wife and children.  The Indoctrination post mentioned above got me thinking about it.  Am I doing my children a disservice by not being more proactive in their early religious development?  While my wife has conceded some points, my children are still being raised as JW’s even if they have an atheist dad.  I haven’t previously had a large problems with it.  My wife and her family are very good moral people, and I think The Truth does help them with that to some extent.  I always thought I could kind of show my children my beliefs as they got older and could understand more.  Yet, the longer this goes the harder that gets. 

Should I Stay Or Should I Go Now

As mentioned in a previous post, my wife is a Jehovah’s witness.  She probably wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but she isn’t near as devout as she once was or as her two sisters currently are.  I think I get a little credit for that.  Not that I am proud of causing her to ask some questions of her faith, but I did at least get her to open her eyes.  She was indoctrined  in the Truth when she was very young, and while there are some good things about JW’s, she had some serious blinders on as well for many years.

I wonder how many stay in religions just to appease family members?  I can remember still going with my mom to church, especially at Christmas or Easter, long after I knew what I believed.  I would sit there and sing and listen to the sermons knowing in my mind that I thought it was all a bunch of hooey.  Even before I met my wife I had researched and knew that Christmas wasn’t Jesus’ birthday (one of the JW’s big bombshells they spring on new disciples is this fact)and that it was really a pagan holiday that was kept to appease conversions to Christianity.  I always thought that it was quite ironic that the God you read in the Old Testament would never allow that to happen and yet it was the most celebrated religious day of the year.  Not to mention the commercialism of it all.  Don’t get me wrong, I loved Christmas growing up as it was often when my parents would both get time off and we would vacation somewhere or just stay home and spend a lot of time together.  We went to both Disneyland and Disneyworld during separate Christmas vacations and they were quite memorable.  My main point is I only did that a couple of times a year, but I think many stay actively involved in church and religious activities long after they may want to.

Getting back to JW’s, I think my wife would convert to a more conventional Christian church if her family wasn’t so involved with the Truth.  I think she still believes in the Bible but not in the way the JW’s present everything.  She has actually listened to me a couple of times when I have discussed with her the history of the Watchtower Society and some of the issues they have.  They too have some irony.  She once showed me a Watchtower article discussing false prophets and how they believe most of the other religions are the false prophets.  Yet the Watchtower is guilty of prophetizing a couple of times as documented very well here and here.  Once I showed her these articles and she researched a little she started to realize there was a few things wrong in her previously untarnished religion.  There has also been some incidents in her congregation that has changed her trust in the association.  But she stays to appease her family, and she goes to just enough meetings and does just enough studying to keep them off her back.  Don’t get me wrong, my wife enjoys reading and studying the Bible and gets a lot out of it, but I think she realizes that had she been raised Catholic, Mormon, or any other version of Christianity she would probably follow that with the same fervor she once had for the JW’s. 

I could go on about some issues with JW’s, but that is really not my intent.  I don’t believe in any of the Christian religions, so no matter which one my wife is involved in, it really isn’t going to effect us that much.  I just can tell she is not as happy with the Watchtower association as she once was, and I think she stays in it for the wrong reasons.  I also am concerned with my children, and how they will be treated when they get older if they follow my path rather than my wife’s.  I would be interested to know if anyone else has had these types of conflicts.