I recently talked to a JW ?Elder? friend of mine, who said that they just received a letter (US) from the Society, stating that they should ?DA? anyone who takes a blood transfusion. There is to be no judicial meeting to check for repentance (or even ignorance ? the basic publications for new JW?s do not even cover blood transfusions!), but only cold ?justice,? according to the Society?s ?rules.? I?m trying to get a copy of the letter and will post it here when I do. If anyone has already gotten a copy, please post it to this board for review. Although this ?DA?ing? policy has been in place in Europe for some time, it seems to me that this policy-change has only recently been transferred to the U.S. Are there any thoughts here?
Automatic DA?ing of anyone taking a blood transfusion, now in the U.S!
by cyberguy 26 Replies latest jw friends
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nicolaou
There is to be no judicial meeting to check for repentance
That's new. Policy lately seems to have been to give the 'offender' as much latitude as possible so as to avoid a disfellowshipping (or disassociation). It really isn't in the Societys interests to continue to create martyrs over the blood issue when they know it will eventually whither to become a matter of personal conscience.
I'd love to see that letter.
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cyberguy
Yes nicolaou ,
This apparently, is a global trend that didn't originate in the US! Eventually, I suppose, all "sins" will be grounds to be DA'd! This prevents long elder meetings and more importantly, law suites! To me, this is what they are really trying to avoid! They's recently lost a lot of money in law suites! Good comment Nicolaou!
Cyberguy!
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trumangirl
I don't know much about this. Wondering, why would automatically DA-ing not attract a law suite whereas a judicial committee case would?
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cypher50
From what I have researched, the reason they are doing this is to create a legal loophole by claiming that people who take a blood transfusion have consciously chose to do so and thusly rejected being a Jehovah's Witness. This way, they can say that you aren't punished by them for exercising your conscious (something that is an issue in most court cases when people point out the flaws in their arguments)...
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Satans little helper
they are saying that by doing something incompatible with witness beliefs you are dissasociating yourself.
At one time in the UK being seen going into a polling station to vote was seen in the same light
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cypher50
To further clarify my original post, the reason why they did this in Europe was because countries such as Bulgaria made an issue of the fact that a Witness could easily come to the scriptural conclusion that blood transfusions are alright and thusly have one without feeling it is a sin. This was part of the reason that Bulgaria refused to classify JW's as a religion (needless destructive doctrines) so the Society basically used legal wording to say that all JWs can exercise their conscious without fear of religious punitive actions. Thus, they use the 'disassociate' term instead of the 'disfellowship' term because 'disassociate' makes it seem that the person in question made the decision to leave themselves...of course, we all know that DA & DF are basically the same but the judicial court systems do not. I came to this understanding from researching the Bulgaria cases at http://www.ajwrb.com.
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blondie
I don't know if you will be able to get a copy of that letter. I know that a "letter" was read by the CO to the bodies of elders regarding this new policy but the elders were not able to touch the letter, let alone read it themselves or get or make a copy for their files. Just make notes in their Flock book. The CO even said it wasn't really a "letter" although my husband could see the WTS letterhead at the top.
I could be mistaken but I remember my hubbie telling me about this and this being posted on JWD a year ago or more.
Blondie
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nobody told me
New Light from old lawyers!!!!
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Cicatrix
I wonder what they will do with baptised minors who are given a transfusion under court order.