What happens when the rules regarding medical treatment are changed because it is now decided that the watchtower god does allows certain blood fractions after all but which formerly the WTS said would offend him so much that offenders would be sent to Gehenna?
Blood serums are just one example. In 1954 the Society’s ruling on blood serums disallowed their use because using blood serums was displeasing to God. Some individuals will now die under the new ruling that formerly would have lived.
Four years later in 1958 this ruling was reversed thus allowing some individuals who would have died under the previous changed ruling to now live. It was now decided that using blood serums was not displeasing to God after all hence the change from disallowed to allow.
This single change presents two immediate problems. Firstly, who is responsible for the deaths, and the consequences of those deaths on their families, of those who, because they were told that using blood serums was displeasing to God, followed the Society’s rules and lost their lives for no reason other than they were mislead about what God requires?
Secondly, what now happens to those individuals who followed their own conscience and decided to use blood serums to save their life and were subsequently disfellowshiped? Under the new rule saying that God does allow blood serum usage and that it never had been offensive to Him they had been disfellowshiped not for doing what was wrong but rather for doing what was right, for showing respect for life. Disfellowshipping is supposed to keep the congregation clean by expelling wrongdoers not expelling those who are practicing righteousness, those who are showing the utmost respect for life.
So just what does happen to those ones who had been wrongly disfellowshiped under the previous incorrect rule and even those who had been wrongly disfellowshiped in the intervening weeks from when the Watchtower Society first internally decided to change the rule and the actual arrival of the issue of the Watchtower or letter publically announcing the NEW rule in the kingdom hall?
Would the Society make a concerted effort to immediately contact those ones explaining that they had been wrongly disfellowshiped and will be immediately re-instated and will not after all suffer eternal death in Gehenna when they die and needless separation from baptized members of their family now? Even if the Society did do this (which they don’t) could they be sure of finding every single individual who had been wrongly disfellowshiped? Some may have moved away and left forever thinking that they were condemned to Gehenna when they die.
If all this sounds like a messy situation think of what happened five years later (1963) when the ruling allowing blood serums was overturned yet again and completely reversed. Why? Because the Society said once again that using blood serums was displeasing to God. If you were ill and needed blood serum and were able to squeeze it in the day before the ruling changed you may have lived but if you fell ill a day after the ruling changed you may die. Yes, the decision whether to sacrifice one’s life in an attempt to please God entirely depends on whether a person fell ill and needed such treatment on the Saturday before the Sunday Watchtower meeting (when the change was announced) or on the Monday after. Is this treating life as sacred and showing respect to our Creator?
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