Blood on the Altar: Confessions of a Jehovah's Witness Minister

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Summary: Jehovah's Witnesses' mind control and blood transfusions.
Review: A Review of Blood on the AltarDave MackmillerBlood on the Altar: Confessions of a Jehovah's Witness Minister, by David A. Reed (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1996) 285 pp.The main focus of Blood on the Altar deals with the Jehovah's Witnesses (JWs) and their refusal to accept blood transfusions, even in the face of death. Much of the rest of the book deals with the 117-year history of the JWs and their plethora of scandals, failed prophesies, and contradictory biblical interpretations.The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, which governs the JWs, loosely interprets an ancient Hebrew dietary restriction as God's injunction against blood transfusions. Genesis 9:4 says, "But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat." (Oddly enough, during the 30's and 40's the JWs also interpreted this as a biblical ban on vaccinations.) Although the JWs release no official mortality data, Reed calculates that between five and twelve thousand JW's die every year from refusing transfusions. But since they die quietly one by one, they don't make sensational headlines like the multiple deaths at Waco and Jonestown. The book is peppered with news clippings about JWs who died by refusing blood. For example, there's Bill Korinek, injured in a car crash,Although growing weaker from loss of blood, Korinek steadfastly refused to accept a transfusion... The Mormon doctor pleaded with the young man's mother to authorize the treatment, but she replied, "I would rather see my boy dead and in the grave than see him violate Jehovah God's commandment against blood!" Korinek died shortly afterward.Sadder yet are the accounts of babies and children who died because their parents felt they were doing Jehovah's will. Several times the doctors were able to get a court order to force a transfusion, but by then it was too late. Sometimes they were physically prevented by large groups of JWs guarding the patient. This is a recent tactic of the JWs, to send a "Hospital Liason Comittee" to watch over a dying member. A JW who is married to a non-believer may secretly sign over power-of-attorney to a church elder, who can then legally order blood withheld over the objections of the patient's family.The JWs carry their ban on blood to absurd extremes. As a JW, you cannot even accept your own blood if it has been removed from your circulation. If your cat needed a blood transfusion and you allowed it, you would be sinning. You also could not use leeches for medical purposes, since you would be feeding them your blood. (They must panic at the sight of a mosquito!)In 1967, they also interpreted Genesis 9:4 as prohibiting organ transplants. They decried them as "a short cut to cannibalistically chewing and eating human flesh." Then in 1980, the Watchtower stated, "There is no biblical command pointedly forbidding the taking in of other human tissue." Reed comments,What of those who went blind refusing a cornea transplant during the thirteen-year ban? What of those who died refusing a kidney or other vital organ? No apologies were given to the suffering individuals still alive, nor to the JW families who lost loved ones. The prohibition on such medical procedures was quietly dropped and then no longer mentioned, as if it had never been.Since the Watchtower Society has reversed itself on transplants and vaccinations, why not drop the ban on blood? Reed speculates that it "may be a case of holding a tiger by the tail: how can they let go after so many have died?"As a former JW myself, I found Reed 's account fascinating. He quotes from JW literature dating back to 1877, exposing teachings that even modern day JWs would find absurd. For example, they asserted for decades that measurements of the Great Pyramid of Giza represented a chronology predicting Christ's return (a theory probably stolen from the Mormans). They also claimed to know God's address: the star Alcyone in the Pleiades cluster.Reed also details his own conversion and the subtle yet powerful mind-control that the JWs exert. He describes his fall from grace over "an inch of hair" and his wife's wearing of pantsuits. (JWs maintain a strictly 50's conservative dress code.) There is a fascinating mind-control story about his encounter with a JW canvassing at his front door shortly after he left the cult. She talked about Revelations and the "great crowd" of JWs who would live forever on earth instead of heaven. He asked her to read from Revelations 19:1,She read, "After these things I heard what was a loud voice of a great crowd in heaven..." Then I asked her where the verse located the great crowd. "On earth," she replied. So I had her read it again, this time interrupting her after she read the words, "great crowd in heaven." Again I asked her where the verse located the great crowd. And again she answered, "On earth." So I pointed to the verse in her Bible and asked her, "But what is that word there - the last word you read?" "It says 'heaven,' " she finally acknowledged, immediately adding, "but the great crowd is on earth." Then she explained, "You don't understand. We have men at our [Watchtower Society] headquarters in Brooklyn, New York, who explain the Bible to us."Is it any wonder that people who are so tightly controlled by the Watchtower Society would gladly allow themselves to die over the Society's interpretation of some ancient Kosher dietary law

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Summary: Very Insightful, It saved my life
Review: First of all I think that the members of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society(a.k.a Jehovah's Witnesses) should read this book before giving it a review. Second of all after reading this book it helped me to realize that as a Jehovah's Witness I had been putting my life in danger not only in a spiritual way but in a physical way as well. I almost died a year ago from a ruptured cyst in my abdomen because I was bleeding internally from it. Thankfully a week before I had the emergency surgery I had read this life-saving book. I realized that I wasn't abstaining from blood because of a religious belief, but rather like the author clearly shows, I was doing merely what I was told by the Society that I should do based strictly on their interpretation of a certain passage of scripture was. Much thanks to the author for saving my life.

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Summary: To both "jonwordsmith" and "a reader"
Review: It is always so sad to see a JW write a review. I am not a JW, and I do not believe their organization contains the "prophet" of God as they claim, so lets just start with that.

Do you not see that your reviews of these books speak to your own inablility to take in any information other than what you are spoon fed by your "leaders"?

Do you not know that you come off as totally brainwashed to those who dont necessarily have an opinion or your beliefs? Come up with some better arguments. If the word of God says "eat" and your organization suddenly decides to take it to an extreme and MISINTERPRET the bible, then arent you the ones spreading the misinformation?

This whole topic is so very depressing to listen to and read about. How can an orgnization determine how you should think? Shouldnt that be God's specific job. Does he REALLY need humans to intervene and continually change the meaning of God's word? Do you think that if your organization makes critical error's in judgement, then this means they are not to be questioned? So sad for you...so very very sad...