Questioning the Jehovah’s Witness Blood Policy

Freedom of thought is a right that many people take for granted. There are many people who believe they have freedom of thought but are mistaken. I was one of those. My name is Wayne Rogers. I was raised in the religious organization known as Jehovah’s Witnesses governed by the Watchtower Society. As I sit down to write the story, I have just finished reading some passages from the February 22, 1999 issue of Awake magazine. In it are some powerful statements in support of free thought and inquiry. These passages particularly struck me:

The article cited Francis Bacon’s advice to weigh and consider, and quoted Thomas Jefferson: “Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error.” It also cited British scientist Sir Hermann Bondi’s argument that sincere religious conviction can be mistaken and should therefore be accompanied by humility.⁵

A life within the congregation

I had been raised as a Jehovah’s Witness since 1966, the son of an elder. I was convinced all my life that I was in God’s organization where there existed true freedom in Christ and brotherly love. I was baptized in 1983 at an international convention at the Oakland Coliseum. I married a fellow believer in 1987 and strove to let Bible principles guide our marriage for 12 years. I served as a ministerial servant in the Highland Oaks/Pleasanton congregation where I was given many responsibilities and occasionally auxiliary pioneered in support of the Watchtower’s preaching work.

Slowly over the years, I began to develop a different view on blood transfusions than the official policy. Many points of scriptural research and personal experience molded my viewpoint. Studies in Bible-based literature such as The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived impressed upon me the contrast between Jesus’ love of people, and the strict, oppressive rule-keeping of the religious leaders of the time. I noticed how Christ approved of setting aside certain restrictions in the Law Covenant when human life or suffering was on the line, much to the dismay of the Pharisees.

I came to understand certain provisions in the Law covenant as allowing distinctions that mattered when human life and well-being were at stake. For instance, on the command to abstain from eating blood, Insight on the Scriptures observes: “At Deuteronomy 14:21 allowance was made for selling to an alien resident or a foreigner an animal that had died of itself or that had been torn by a beast. Thus, a distinction was made between the blood of such animals and that of animals that a person slaughtered for food.”⁶

My reading of Leviticus 17:15–16 led me to understand that eating an animal that had died naturally or been torn by a beast required washing and temporary ritual uncleanness, rather than the death penalty. I understood this as significant when considering a person’s need for food. I also noted the separate restriction on priests in Leviticus 22:8. These passages contributed to my belief that the preservation of life should matter when interpreting restrictions involving blood.

I recall back in 1981 when one of my best friends was suffering from kidney failure. He may have been among the first Jehovah’s Witnesses to get on the list for an organ transplant after the policy changed. His story can be found in the November 22, 1996, Awake! article entitled “‘It’s Only Temporary!’—My Life With Kidney Disease.”⁷ The Watchtower Society (WTS) had changed its position in March 1980, and my friend and his family had decided that a transplant would not violate their consciences. I recall that I had no thought whatsoever that he was a “cannibal” who sustained his life by feeding on human flesh, although Watchtower literature had described organ transplantation in cannibalistic terms beginning in 1967.^{8, 9} I am firmly convinced that Jehovah’s Witnesses would not have viewed blood transfusions as a serious sin if the WTS had not been vilifying the procedure for so many years.

When the durable power of attorney (DPA) forms were starting to be promoted by the WTS, I was concerned that I might be giving someone else authority to make health decisions that did not reflect my own views. I procrastinated on signing this form, even though my wife kept pushing me to do so.

Speaking about my doubts

In late 1998, my wife became more insistent that we sign the DPA forms, and also started ordering things like "no-blood" key chains. I could not hold back any longer. I broke down and told her that I did not agree with the WTS views on blood. Needless to say, my wife was stunned! She then stopped me and refused to hear any reasons why I disagreed. I started a renewed effort to find information that I could share with her to explain my position. I went to the local hospital library to find information on blood fractions. In the medical journal database, I found references to the AJWRB, then known as Associated Jehovah’s Witnesses for Reform on Blood. Intrigued, I visited their website.

I had always tried to avoid what I thought were "apostate sites" before, but I could not view AJWRB as apostate. I was ecstatic that there were other JWs who felt the same as me on this issue! I read it all in amazement and found that I had already arrived at many of the conclusions presented. I sent Lee Elder an email expressing my support for the work that he was doing, and asking him to send some information to a circuit overseer I knew. My wife found the letter I had sent on my computer, printed it out, and gave it to my elders. I was called into a judicial hearing for the first time in my life.

The judicial hearings

Looking back, I guess I was rather naïve, and thought that my elders were there to help me. I quickly realized that wasn’t the case. The first order of business at the hearings was to make sure I had brought no recording devices. I thought this was strange that if the purpose was to protect my privacy, why would I bring one? It became apparent that these hearings were more for interrogation than for helping the individual. It all boiled down to the question of whether I accepted that all of the current understandings of the WTS were "food at the proper time" from the "faithful and discreet slave".

I pleaded that I could not agree to that idea, given the changeable nature of the WTS doctrine. How could the ban on organ transplants be viewed as truth from God, only to later be dropped? I told them that I believed that this teaching was nothing more than someone’s personal opinion that got put into The Watchtower for millions of trusting people to view as "absolute truth". Incredibly, one of the elders actually said that blood transfusions were really a conscience matter anyway!

Amazingly, the Bible was not opened until after a decision was made. They used the Bible to try to accuse me of being a man trying to cause divisions. I protested that I had not been spreading my views around the congregation, indeed, the elders admitted that they did not feel that I was even trying to push my views on them.

They replied that I could not be allowed to be in the congregation if in my mind I was supporting the AJWRB. They read some quotes from the elders’ manual that if a brother persists in believing something contrary to the current teachings of the organization, then he has committed apostasy, even if he does not spread his views publicly.

I went home that night in a daze to tell my wife of the outcome. We were not expecting the worst to happen. I was given a week to appeal the decision and finally decided I would. My wife was furious and felt that an appeal was like slapping the elders in the face. But I knew that I could not let this happen to me without trying to do something to prevent it. The circuit overseer then handpicked three more elders from other cities.

Again, I was asked at the appeal hearing if I had any recording devices, which I did not. Again, I did not try to be argumentative, as I instinctively knew that if I argued with them I would be viewed as unrepentant. I did present some of my case that other doctrines had been changed in the past, and that we should follow the Bible over the words of men. They told me that in order to have unity, Witnesses could not interpret the Bible for themselves.

I asked them if they believed that the ban on organ transplants was from God, or from man’s opinion. They replied that they were not there to change my mind, and I wasn’t there to change theirs. Disheartened, I realized that my fate was sealed even before they dismissed us to make their decision. I was pronounced disfellowshipped on January 11, 1999 on the basis that my beliefs "separate me from Jehovah’s Witnesses".

The personal consequences

My wife immediately distanced herself from me and treated me with great distrust and suspicion. She refused to even hear the reasons why I had taken my stand. She told me that she could not stop viewing me as an enemy of God. She met with the elders without my presence, and would not tell me what counsel was given to her, for fear, she said, that I would just use it against the Society. She decided to leave me and obtain a separation. I was not allowed to reason with her. If I even brought out the Bible, she would run from the house with her hands over her ears.

In March, during this period of severe stress, I wound up in the hospital for a week with a severely painful case of meningitis and shingles.

My parents finally came to see me. My mother immediately started condemning me, that I was "worse than an adulterer", demon-possessed, and "brainwashed by apostates". She said that if my father had done what I did, she would have left him too.

My father has admitted to me that he has noticed a "totalitarian" element in the Organization and that he has had doubts himself, but "you don’t go and tell the elders!" Since then I have been cut off from my family and all my life-long friends, who believe they have no choice but to shun me.

Sincerely,
Wayne M. Rogers