Jehovah's Witnesses and the blood transfusion issue
When one studies false religions, this issue might just be the first and most important one to address. After all, how
does someone find eternal life in Jesus unless they are kept alive?
The Jehovah's Witnesses might very well be the number one killer cult in the world because of their blood
transfusion policy. Approximately 17 years ago I listened to the testimony of William Cetnar, an ex CEO of the
Jehovah's Witnesses who had left the organization and possessed a letter from the Red Cross that estimated that
10 percent of the World's population needs a blood transfusion annually. Maybe not that much in the USA, but in
other parts of the third world...maybe more... Aids in Africa.... Wars in the Sudan. etc. ...and with 265 translations of
their erroneous bible (with a little "b" because it is not really one), the New World Translation....coupled with their
two magazines holding title to having the most printings in the world, we can surely say that the Jehovah's
Witnesses are world wide.
For the sake of arguing, let's say that 10 percent is too high and use only 1 percent. That means that 1 percent of
7,000,000 Jehovah's Witnesses need a blood transfusion annually. Doing the math, that means 70,000 Jehovah's
Witnesses have to make a life and death decision every year. 190 per day. About fifteen days of these transfusion
refusals almost equals the deaths in the World Trade center....and we invaded Afghanistan for that. However, keep
in mind, using the Red Cross figures, it could be as high as1900 per day. There are no exact figures from the
medical community on who refuses blood transfusals. The Jehovah's Witnesses might keep them...but I don't think
they would release them, do you? But in the light of the Waco incident where the religion was arguably only
threatening to life and limb, what figures would be acceptable to us for the surety of deaths, 10, 8, per adventure 6,
maybe 2 deaths per day ? What would we do if a Ford Pinto or bad tires caused only 2 deaths per day?
Using the 190 deaths per day figure, Islam has not taken this much life. Nor has the Catholics.... including the
Inquistion, Saint Bartholomews Massacre, or the Heugenots incident. Vietnam war deaths equalled about 6 months
of Jehovah's Witness refusals. Katrina killed the equivalent of about 10 days of the sin sangres. Even drunk driving
and drug abuse combined...doesn't compare!
In my little town of about 15,000, in one year I knew of two who died thinking God wanted them to refuse a blood
transfusion. One was a little girl with leukemia and, of course, her parents got to make that decision for her. The
second was a woman about 35 years old. In my little town.There is no telling how many more there were that same
year that I did not know about....just in my little town.
Just a few days ago England foiled a Muslim threat to board and blow up planes crossing the Atlantic for the USA.
One of the terrorist's was a woman who intended to use her own baby as a decoy so she could board, and then
later blow her own baby up ... for that fanatic philosophy.
Yet, just a month ago I met with some Jehovah's Witnesses who had convinced a father of a 21 month old baby to
follow them. He had been "born" into this group but had just begun studying with them for the past few weeks with
his Uncle.The mother, with a nominal Christian background, had refused to join up with them, fearing for the future
life of her baby. Her mother called me to come meet with them. Before they agreed to meet with me ...they told her
they would not meet with me if I was a pastor. So I ended up outnumbered three to one. Except that I had the Holy
Spirit with me. So much for outnumbering. After we talked she realized how "mind controlled" the Jehovah's
Witnesses were. She could see how they were redefining terms as it suited them. How they could take one sentence
literally and yet the next sentence in the same verse figuratively.... as it suited them (Rev. 7:4 for example). They
even tried to say that the Red Cross and the World Health Organization (who beg for blood)was no longer
recommmending blood transfusions! When I called them on this, pointing out that my step son gives needed blood
at every opportunity they said okay "but they are only doing it for the money".
Jehovah's Witnesses always have another "appointment" when they feel "persecuted", so it soon came time for
them to leave. It was 9pm and they claimed to have another appointment in Duluth, 80 miles away. When asked,
they said they would not meet with me again to discuss further issues.....so again, so much for my being
outnumbered. So I looked at the father who was holding the baby in his arms and I asked him in front of them all,
"Brent, could you let your little baby die by refusing him a blood transfusion if he needed it?" He looked me right in
the eye and said "Yes, because that's what God would want".
Pharoahs, Herods, Muslims, Jehovah's Witnesses.... seems all can kill babies for their philosophy. Unless
Sherlock,....unless... could it be that this philosophy is really a religion in disquise? It certainly has someones
fingerprints on it!
I tried to point out to them that Christians do not kill, that Satan is the Thief and the Killer and that Jesus came that
we might have life and that we might have it more abundantly.... and what did they say as they couldn't see the
connection? They said "Why do you keep repeating that verse"? Oh well, I should have remembered Jesus saying
"...My sheep hear My voice". Actually His sheep did.... the smart Mother, Grandmother, and Baby left the Father a
few days later because of his "Watchtower" attitude..... another cult thus destroying another could-be family! Yes I
said cult. Not only me, but almost every describer of the word says it.
The problem with the blood transfusion issue is that once it was infamously used by the Watchtower as coming from
God, it will never be revoked by them. Can you imagine the angry father who let his child die being told by the
Watchtower....I guess we were wrong! This anti-transfusion policy will perpetuate and only be stopped at the
individual level.
Still today, the Watchtower teaches you are worthy of death if you take blood. The only alternative to actual blood
transfusion is a blood expander called fluosol which does not really work very well. In days past they would
disfellowship you for it.....seriously alienating you from your family and friends. What can we say to these people
when they come to our doors? Let's take a look at the Blood Transfusion issue.
One Bible text the Watchtower uses to support their anti blood transfusion policy is:
Genesis 9:4 "But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat"
Here, after previous harmony between men and animals, God is now sanctioning an animal diet as long as they are
not eaten with their raw blood still in them. Obviously there has not been much advance in medicine and yet God
knows about such diseases common to eating raw blood....such as trichinosis. For this reason he forbids it. Keep in
mind that since there has not been medicine, there has not been transfusions also, and so our practical God would
not forbid what did not exist.
The Jehovah's Witnesses then use Leviticus 17:10 "....I will even set my face against that soul that eateth blood and
shall cut him off from among his people". Then they juxtapose the two verses and twist "eat" to mean "transfuse"
and "cut off" to mean execute. In fact, if you study the Jehovah's Witnesses much, you will see that their entire
doctrine is built on word plays and evasions. However, if you follow the context of the passage you will see in verse
15 of the same chapter that the "cutting off" is just an omniscient God quarantining the blood eaters from the rest of
the people: "....he shall both wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the even; then shall
he be clean".
In today's lingo it might be said " Go clean yourself up and stay away from everyone until you are no longer
contagious". Usually this is enough rebuttal for normal people....but the Jehovah's Witness have been trained to
argue on.
Orthodox Jews who hold to every jot and tittle of the Old Testament law will not even translate this verse to include
blood transfusions. You should point out that Christians are no longer under the law.....and if they try to say this is
pre Mosaic and that yes we are still under it, then take them to Leviticus 3:17 and show them that if that is the
case....neither can they eat fat! Even when all the people ate blood, God only forced Saul to waste some time with
some heavy labor and turned him into the first "Rolling Stone".....but he did not kill them! (1Samuel 14:33).
When I took my training as a pilot, the FAA approved rules were to be followed if lives were to be saved. There were
many, many tedious but practical rules. One FAA rule hovered above all the others....in an emergency where lives
are at stake you are alowed to break any of the other rules in order to save a life. It is a good rule.
Jesus has a similar rule. I think it could be applied to wives who are in fear of being beaten or killed as well. Allowing
them a divorce. A most important rule of the Old Testament was honoring the sabbath. If you so much as built a fire
on the sabbath they would "rock you to sleep" for it. In the new testament the Pharisees were not helping to close
"wall street" and set aside the sabbath for rest and worship, they were using Sabbath violations to find reasons to
arrest people in order to show their "holier than thou" piousness. Jesus came along and told them (Mt.12) that 1. He
was the Boss over the Sabbath, and 2. It was Okay to do well on the Sabbath. If your dog fell into a pit on the
Sabbath get him out.....and so much better to save a man. Now if Jesus would set aside the sabbath in order to do
well and save a life (Luke 13), then he would also set aside any lesser law like eating of blood to save a life. Even if
you translated it transfusion.
Another text they use is Acts 15:20 " But that we write unto them, that they abstain fromn pollutions of idols, and
from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood"......and v.29 "That ye abstain from meats offered to
idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication; from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do
well. fare ye well". We are not really sure what abstaining from blood means here but it is not talking about
transfusions that do not yet exist....it could very well mean staying away from blood baths or murder. Jesus also said
it is not what enters the mouth that defiles a man, but what comes out of it.....passes through the body and comes
out in the sewer (Mt.15:11-18). Jesus nor Paul were never concerned with what went into the mouth unless it was
connected with a sin condition of the heart....such as meat offered to idols in front of an onlooker.
In the hospitial you can find JW's and their Elders guarding the hospital doors to make sure no one slips in a bag of
"moonshine" blood on the unconscious. When it is court ordered, many times they still scheme to block the
transfusion. Once they thought about getting a helicopter to abscond with a baby! Several times I have asked the
JW, "What is that red stuff you see when you bite into a Big Mac or T-Bone"? Knowing that the answer is blood, one
of them thought quickly and said " Yeah but I can't be responsible if I don't know what I've done". I said," so if you
are unconscious and don't know about it, it is okay"? he quickly changed his mind and said, "No, not under those
conditions".
In one of their magazines, years ago, a reader wrote in and questioned if a Christians' dog should eat raw meat with
blood in it. The reply was that it should not! Can You imagine....a dog that makes his living hunting down blood to
eat is now refused dinner! Watchtower ridiculii abounds.
They have many other contradictions through the years as well. They can take organ transplants (organs are 90
percent blood). They could and then they couldn't and now they can again take serums (made from blood). It's okay
if the blood is separated from the fluid and transfused separately to be brought back together again in the body.
Lots of problems when you follow a false prophet.
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When one studies false religions, this issue might just be the first and most important one to address. After all, how
does someone find eternal life in Jesus unless they are kept alive?
The Jehovah's Witnesses might very well be the number one killer cult in the world because of their blood
transfusion policy. Approximately 17 years ago I listened to the testimony of William Cetnar, an ex CEO of the
Jehovah's Witnesses who had left the organization and possessed a letter from the Red Cross that estimated that
10 percent of the World's population needs a blood transfusion annually. Maybe not that much in the USA, but in
other parts of the third world...maybe more... Aids in Africa.... Wars in the Sudan. etc. ...and with 265 translations of
their erroneous bible (with a little "b" because it is not really one), the New World Translation....coupled with their
two magazines holding title to having the most printings in the world, we can surely say that the Jehovah's
Witnesses are world wide.
For the sake of arguing, let's say that 10 percent is too high and use only 1 percent. That means that 1 percent of
7,000,000 Jehovah's Witnesses need a blood transfusion annually. Doing the math, that means 70,000 Jehovah's
Witnesses have to make a life and death decision every year. 190 per day. About fifteen days of these transfusion
refusals almost equals the deaths in the World Trade center....and we invaded Afghanistan for that. However, keep
in mind, using the Red Cross figures, it could be as high as1900 per day. There are no exact figures from the
medical community on who refuses blood transfusals. The Jehovah's Witnesses might keep them...but I don't think
they would release them, do you? But in the light of the Waco incident where the religion was arguably only
threatening to life and limb, what figures would be acceptable to us for the surety of deaths, 10, 8, per adventure 6,
maybe 2 deaths per day ? What would we do if a Ford Pinto or bad tires caused only 2 deaths per day?
Using the 190 deaths per day figure, Islam has not taken this much life. Nor has the Catholics.... including the
Inquistion, Saint Bartholomews Massacre, or the Heugenots incident. Vietnam war deaths equalled about 6 months
of Jehovah's Witness refusals. Katrina killed the equivalent of about 10 days of the sin sangres. Even drunk driving
and drug abuse combined...doesn't compare!
In my little town of about 15,000, in one year I knew of two who died thinking God wanted them to refuse a blood
transfusion. One was a little girl with leukemia and, of course, her parents got to make that decision for her. The
second was a woman about 35 years old. In my little town.There is no telling how many more there were that same
year that I did not know about....just in my little town.
Just a few days ago England foiled a Muslim threat to board and blow up planes crossing the Atlantic for the USA.
One of the terrorist's was a woman who intended to use her own baby as a decoy so she could board, and then
later blow her own baby up ... for that fanatic philosophy.
Yet, just a month ago I met with some Jehovah's Witnesses who had convinced a father of a 21 month old baby to
follow them. He had been "born" into this group but had just begun studying with them for the past few weeks with
his Uncle.The mother, with a nominal Christian background, had refused to join up with them, fearing for the future
life of her baby. Her mother called me to come meet with them. Before they agreed to meet with me ...they told her
they would not meet with me if I was a pastor. So I ended up outnumbered three to one. Except that I had the Holy
Spirit with me. So much for outnumbering. After we talked she realized how "mind controlled" the Jehovah's
Witnesses were. She could see how they were redefining terms as it suited them. How they could take one sentence
literally and yet the next sentence in the same verse figuratively.... as it suited them (Rev. 7:4 for example). They
even tried to say that the Red Cross and the World Health Organization (who beg for blood)was no longer
recommmending blood transfusions! When I called them on this, pointing out that my step son gives needed blood
at every opportunity they said okay "but they are only doing it for the money".
Jehovah's Witnesses always have another "appointment" when they feel "persecuted", so it soon came time for
them to leave. It was 9pm and they claimed to have another appointment in Duluth, 80 miles away. When asked,
they said they would not meet with me again to discuss further issues.....so again, so much for my being
outnumbered. So I looked at the father who was holding the baby in his arms and I asked him in front of them all,
"Brent, could you let your little baby die by refusing him a blood transfusion if he needed it?" He looked me right in
the eye and said "Yes, because that's what God would want".
Pharoahs, Herods, Muslims, Jehovah's Witnesses.... seems all can kill babies for their philosophy. Unless
Sherlock,....unless... could it be that this philosophy is really a religion in disquise? It certainly has someones
fingerprints on it!
I tried to point out to them that Christians do not kill, that Satan is the Thief and the Killer and that Jesus came that
we might have life and that we might have it more abundantly.... and what did they say as they couldn't see the
connection? They said "Why do you keep repeating that verse"? Oh well, I should have remembered Jesus saying
"...My sheep hear My voice". Actually His sheep did.... the smart Mother, Grandmother, and Baby left the Father a
few days later because of his "Watchtower" attitude..... another cult thus destroying another could-be family! Yes I
said cult. Not only me, but almost every describer of the word says it.
The problem with the blood transfusion issue is that once it was infamously used by the Watchtower as coming from
God, it will never be revoked by them. Can you imagine the angry father who let his child die being told by the
Watchtower....I guess we were wrong! This anti-transfusion policy will perpetuate and only be stopped at the
individual level.
Still today, the Watchtower teaches you are worthy of death if you take blood. The only alternative to actual blood
transfusion is a blood expander called fluosol which does not really work very well. In days past they would
disfellowship you for it.....seriously alienating you from your family and friends. What can we say to these people
when they come to our doors? Let's take a look at the Blood Transfusion issue.
One Bible text the Watchtower uses to support their anti blood transfusion policy is:
Genesis 9:4 "But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat"
Here, after previous harmony between men and animals, God is now sanctioning an animal diet as long as they are
not eaten with their raw blood still in them. Obviously there has not been much advance in medicine and yet God
knows about such diseases common to eating raw blood....such as trichinosis. For this reason he forbids it. Keep in
mind that since there has not been medicine, there has not been transfusions also, and so our practical God would
not forbid what did not exist.
The Jehovah's Witnesses then use Leviticus 17:10 "....I will even set my face against that soul that eateth blood and
shall cut him off from among his people". Then they juxtapose the two verses and twist "eat" to mean "transfuse"
and "cut off" to mean execute. In fact, if you study the Jehovah's Witnesses much, you will see that their entire
doctrine is built on word plays and evasions. However, if you follow the context of the passage you will see in verse
15 of the same chapter that the "cutting off" is just an omniscient God quarantining the blood eaters from the rest of
the people: "....he shall both wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the even; then shall
he be clean".
In today's lingo it might be said " Go clean yourself up and stay away from everyone until you are no longer
contagious". Usually this is enough rebuttal for normal people....but the Jehovah's Witness have been trained to
argue on.
Orthodox Jews who hold to every jot and tittle of the Old Testament law will not even translate this verse to include
blood transfusions. You should point out that Christians are no longer under the law.....and if they try to say this is
pre Mosaic and that yes we are still under it, then take them to Leviticus 3:17 and show them that if that is the
case....neither can they eat fat! Even when all the people ate blood, God only forced Saul to waste some time with
some heavy labor and turned him into the first "Rolling Stone".....but he did not kill them! (1Samuel 14:33).
When I took my training as a pilot, the FAA approved rules were to be followed if lives were to be saved. There were
many, many tedious but practical rules. One FAA rule hovered above all the others....in an emergency where lives
are at stake you are alowed to break any of the other rules in order to save a life. It is a good rule.
Jesus has a similar rule. I think it could be applied to wives who are in fear of being beaten or killed as well. Allowing
them a divorce. A most important rule of the Old Testament was honoring the sabbath. If you so much as built a fire
on the sabbath they would "rock you to sleep" for it. In the new testament the Pharisees were not helping to close
"wall street" and set aside the sabbath for rest and worship, they were using Sabbath violations to find reasons to
arrest people in order to show their "holier than thou" piousness. Jesus came along and told them (Mt.12) that 1. He
was the Boss over the Sabbath, and 2. It was Okay to do well on the Sabbath. If your dog fell into a pit on the
Sabbath get him out.....and so much better to save a man. Now if Jesus would set aside the sabbath in order to do
well and save a life (Luke 13), then he would also set aside any lesser law like eating of blood to save a life. Even if
you translated it transfusion.
Another text they use is Acts 15:20 " But that we write unto them, that they abstain fromn pollutions of idols, and
from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood"......and v.29 "That ye abstain from meats offered to
idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication; from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do
well. fare ye well". We are not really sure what abstaining from blood means here but it is not talking about
transfusions that do not yet exist....it could very well mean staying away from blood baths or murder. Jesus also said
it is not what enters the mouth that defiles a man, but what comes out of it.....passes through the body and comes
out in the sewer (Mt.15:11-18). Jesus nor Paul were never concerned with what went into the mouth unless it was
connected with a sin condition of the heart....such as meat offered to idols in front of an onlooker.
In the hospitial you can find JW's and their Elders guarding the hospital doors to make sure no one slips in a bag of
"moonshine" blood on the unconscious. When it is court ordered, many times they still scheme to block the
transfusion. Once they thought about getting a helicopter to abscond with a baby! Several times I have asked the
JW, "What is that red stuff you see when you bite into a Big Mac or T-Bone"? Knowing that the answer is blood, one
of them thought quickly and said " Yeah but I can't be responsible if I don't know what I've done". I said," so if you
are unconscious and don't know about it, it is okay"? he quickly changed his mind and said, "No, not under those
conditions".
In one of their magazines, years ago, a reader wrote in and questioned if a Christians' dog should eat raw meat with
blood in it. The reply was that it should not! Can You imagine....a dog that makes his living hunting down blood to
eat is now refused dinner! Watchtower ridiculii abounds.
They have many other contradictions through the years as well. They can take organ transplants (organs are 90
percent blood). They could and then they couldn't and now they can again take serums (made from blood). It's okay
if the blood is separated from the fluid and transfused separately to be brought back together again in the body.
Lots of problems when you follow a false prophet.
<<<Back To Articles
