WHY I STOPPED APOLOGISING FOR THE WATCHTOWER SOCIETY - PART 8
Having found convincing evidence to refute the claim by the organisation that it was 'God's channel of communication', I started to examine some of the 'divine commands' JWs had been pursuaded to accept. Of course, the most controversial of these is that which pertains to the use of blood. Although personally I felt uncomfortable with the idea of another person's blood flowing in my veins, I wondered if the command to 'abstain from blood' could truthfully be applied to transfusions. I thought that it is one thing for an individual JW to make their own decision to refuse a transfusion because s/he felt his/her conscience could not allow it, but quite another for a tiny group of men to decide 6 million JWs based on their own interpretation of scripture. My - by now unblinkered - look at Genesis 9:3-6 revealed the real reason behind the 'divine command'. God was simply impressing upon human beings the value of life. He allowed human beings to take animal life, but with one proviso, that the blood of the animal be returned to the ground in recognition of the sacredness of life. The command was not given as a dietary requirement but as reminder that it was only by God's permission that animal life could be taken. Since other scriptures that addressed the use of blood were reiterating what God had said about the taking of human or animal life, the application of it to blood transfusions is a fallacy. I returned to various online forums to share my findings, and to encourage JWs to read Ray's books. Finding A New Way
It was about this time that I started to read many books and religious works that had some connection with the Bible/Jews/Christianity. These included English translations of the Works Of Josephus, Dead Sea Scrolls, Nag Hammadi Library (gnostic gospels), and even the Qur'an. I also read J. R. Porter's book 'The Lost Bible' which contains many Jewish and Christian-oriented writings that were rejected by the Church as being uninspired. The purpose of this intensive reading campaign was to compare religious belief and to try to find out how religious thought developed. I made a number of interesting discoveries along the way (but that's another story).
Further reading revealed the fact the politicized Catholic Church had from an early point in its history decided amongst its 'bishops' what constituted inspired writings, and based on what I knew about those who ran the church, I could not without great reservations accept that they had been 'God's channel of communication' at that time. The 'holy canon' which we have today was not decided without disagreement though, and as one early Church writer observed the various gospels, letters and even the Revelation itself were questionable among different Christians. Due to this fact, I reluctantly came to the conclusion that I could no longer accept without question everything written in what we today have as the New Testament (NT). If the NT was a collection of non-inspired works (i.e. not flawless dictations from God), then that would explain any inconsistencies within it.
One scripture that always stood out like a sore thumb to me, is Paul's words regarding women teaching on scriptural matters (1 Timothy 11 & 12). The fact that Paul said, 'I do not permit...' rather than saying 'God does not permit...', made me think that either he was presumptious in giving his own opinion (thus, not God's), or it was added to the text by the authoritarian Church. I had my suspicions about other possible insertions. I noted how people who wanted to prove their doctrinal beliefs from the scriptures could often find a scripture here or there that might give credence to their views, but if one were honest and looked at what the scriptures said as a whole, then a different picture emerged. I did not reject the NT as of no use spiritually, but my understanding changed as I determined to get a 'bird-eye' view. I stopped taking the JW approach of homing in on a scripture and saying, 'therefore that's what we must do' (e.g. picking out the 'door-to-door' scripture in Acts to prove Christians must preach from door-to-door). This allowed me to get back to the real Jesus Christ and his teachings, instead of wasting time on internal arguments over words and phrases, which can lead to no end of do's and don'ts.
If, during my grandparents' generation, the general public had been asked the question, 'What do you think it means to be a Christian', then I believe the majority of answers would have been along the lines of: 'One who does kind things for other people'. It seems that those who read the NT for the first time pick up on the fact that Jesus Christ was known as a man who cared not only for people's spiritual needs by also their physical needs. Although he gave much instruction of a spiritual nature and pointed folk to better times, he realised that people had to live now and needed help now. That is why I no longer worry about what will happen in the future. For most of my life I have been waiting on promises, putting life on hold being content to stare into the future watching for some miraculous event. Now, however, I live for today.
My faith in God (however one might conceive him to be) is intact and my admiration for the person of Jesus Christ as depicted in the Bible has not disappeared. I feel no need to be part of an organised religion, as my view is that God deals with people individually not through a third party. For once in my life I actually feel at peace within. I no longer suffer from bouts of depression, despair over the fact that God's new system still hasn't arrived, nor the obsession (and accompanying guilt) with trying to live up to an impossible standard.
Because I care about those who are trying desperately to unlock their mental prison and those struggling with emotional turmoil on account of their association with the JW organisation, I wanted to share my experiences. I am thankful to God that there is hope for any JW still trapped by the society to find out the truth, but it will require some trust and a willingness to do impartial investigation. As a final thought, I'd like to quote these words of Jesus: '...[The Lord] has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives, sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free.' (Luke 4:18 - The New Jerusalem Bible)
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