by raymond frantz 35 Replies latest watchtower bible
Rattigan - “So the problem is the critics preventing them to do that, not the GB itself.”
Bitch, please.
There’s no fucking way they’d just let it fade into extinction. If there wasn’t outside pressure to reform (at least on paper), JWs would still be practicing every aspect of their religion the exact same way they were doing it in the 1930s.
Don’t try to put this on the “critics”.
They are not backtracking on their blood view. This is about blood fractions. -- Duran
Exactly.
No change here.
"This JW elder lost his life because of the ban on organ transplants"
It was still a choice that he made. He could have chosen to get the transplant.
Remember that health decisions and issues are private. The congregation has no business knowing such things.
Seabreeze said "The dead in heaven are awaiting a resurrection. 2 Corinthians 5:8, which suggests believers are "away from the body and at home with the Lord"."
There are no dead in heaven. Any in heaven are alive.
Here is how it works. Everyone who has died since Abel is in Sheol/hades/hell aka the grave. Since the time of Pentecost, Christians started getting anointed with holy spirit. When they died they were still dead. When Jesus became king, he cleansed the heavens as John 14:2-6 (prepared a place for the apostles) and Rev 12 says casting out Satan from the heavens. Then those dead in Christ were raised to heaven. Then after that time, any anointed left, when they died were instantly raised to heaven.
As for 2 Cor 5. It says "For we know that" Who is that 'we'? Paul and the Corinthians. Not you or anyone in this century.
vs 5 "Now the one who prepared us for this very thing is God, who gave us the spirit as a token of what is to come" That token is the holy spirit that they were anointed with. That 'us' is Paul and the Corinthians as they were anointed with the holy spirit.
vs 8 "But we are of good courage and would prefer to be absent from the body and to make our home with the Lord" So it is what they would prefer. That is not us today.
When Jesus became king, he cleansed the heavens as John 14:2-6 (prepared a place for the apostles) and Rev 12 says casting out Satan from the heavens. Then those dead in Christ were raised to heaven. Then after that time, any anointed left, when they died were instantly raised to heaven.
So, if you believe the resurrection has already occurred, then does that mean that you believe the 'last day' has come and the 'last trumpet' has blown?
[ 39 This is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose none out of all those whom he has given me, but that I should resurrect them on the last day. 40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who recognizes the Son and exercises faith in him should have everlasting life, and I will resurrect him on the last day.”]
[24 Martha said to him: “I know he will rise in the resurrection on the last day.”]
[52 in a moment, in the blink of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised up incorruptible, and we will be changed.]
[29 “Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 30 Then the sign of the Son of man will appear in heaven, and all the tribes of the earth will beat themselves in grief, and they will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 31 And he will send out his angels with a great trumpet sound, and they will gather his chosen ones together from the four winds, from one extremity of the heavens to their other extremity.]
[8 However, do not let this escape your notice, beloved ones, that one day is with Jehovah as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day.]
[4 And I saw thrones, and those who sat on them were given authority to judge. Yes, I saw the souls of those executed for the witness they gave about Jesus and for speaking about God, and those who had not worshipped the wild beast or its image and had not received the mark on their forehead and on their hand. And they came to life and ruled as kings with the Christ for 1,000 years.]
[ 7 But you who suffer tribulation will be given relief along with us at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with his powerful angels 8 in a flaming fire, as he brings vengeance on those who do not know God and those who do not obey the good news about our Lord Jesus. 9 These very ones will undergo the judicial punishment of everlasting destruction from before the Lord and from the glory of his strength, 10 at the time when he comes to be glorified in connection with his holy ones and to be regarded in that day with wonder among all those who exercised faith, because the witness we gave met with faith among you.]
In the July 2025 Watchtower (Study Article 28, paragraph 17), Jehovah’s Witnesses are told:
“Each Christian must make up his or her own mind about whether to accept or to reject these [blood] fractions… So when should we ask a mature Christian for advice? After we have done our own research…”
At first glance, it seems like a modest, even humble, appeal to personal responsibility. But make no mistake: this is not about spiritual maturity. This is not about conscience. This is about liability—and it reeks of cowardice dressed up as piety.
The blood doctrine has long been a centerpiece of the Watchtower’s theological and cultural identity, enforced not merely through publications but through judicial action, social shunning, and unrelenting moral pressure. Now, as legal scrutiny tightens and the public grows increasingly repulsed by policies that have claimed the lives of countless men, women, and children, the Governing Body is playing a new game: plausible deniability. They want all the control without any of the responsibility. All the blood, none of the blame.
For decades, members were told explicitly that receiving a blood transfusion was a sin worthy of disfellowshipping. Families were torn apart, children died, and parents were lauded for letting their sons and daughters perish “faithful.” Elders delivered ultimatums in hospital rooms. Awake! magazine ran cover stories of brave martyrs who “stood firm” to the end. And now, just as the tide of global opinion turns and lawsuits mount, the organization dares to say: “Do your own research. The choice is yours.”
But the choice is anything but free. What Witness dares to reject the unspoken expectation? What parent wants to be seen as spiritually weak for authorizing a transfusion? The entire Watchtower framework is designed to steer members to the “right” conclusion, even while pretending to grant autonomy. A Witness who takes blood still faces social death by disassociation, even if it’s technically rebranded as a “personal decision.” It’s manipulation cloaked in compassion.
Apologists try to spin this shift as progress. “It’s just about fractions.” “They’ve always left room for conscience.” “There’s no hard rule anymore.” These arguments are disingenuous. If the Governing Body genuinely believed that accepting blood (or any of its components) was not a sin, they’d say so clearly. They’d abolish the Hospital Liaison Committees. They’d rescind decades of printed threats. They’d apologize for the lives lost under their directives. They’d disband the judicial penalties that still loom over every hospital bed.
But they won’t—because doing so would mean admitting that those deaths were not sacrifices to God, but to human arrogance. It would mean confessing that their understanding of divine will has been flawed, changeable, and deadly. And that kind of admission costs power.
Instead, they’re opting for ambiguity, letting rank-and-file Witnesses shoulder the moral burden they created. “Make your own decision,” they say, as if the ghost of a disfellowshipped relative isn’t standing in the room. “Do your own research,” as if the only available material isn’t their own doctrine, filtered through layers of euphemism and omission. “We never told them what to do,” they’ll insist, when the lawsuits come.
What’s more tragic is that none of this is new. This is the same playbook they used when they quietly reversed their ban on vaccinations in the 1950s after calling them “a violation of God’s covenant with Noah.” The same hedging they used when they outlawed organ transplants in 1967—calling them “cannibalism”—only to reverse course in 1980 without apology. The same backpedaling they’ll eventually do with blood transfusions, once the cost—legal, financial, reputational—is too high to ignore.
And when that day comes, it won’t be the Governing Body offering comfort to the grieving parents whose children died obeying a rule that no longer exists. It will be the same silence that always follows their doctrinal wreckage. No memorials. No retractions. No remorse.
So yes, the Watchtower now says the blood is on your hands. Not because they want to free your conscience—but because they want to free their own. It’s your choice, they say. But if you make the wrong one, you’ll still pay the price.
And they’ll still pretend they had nothing to do with it.
