January 10, 2003
From:
R. Jensen
24 Running Deer Road
Phenix City, AL 36870
To:
Watchtower Bible & Tract Society, and
Christian Congregation of Jehovah—s Witnesses
25 Columbia Heights
Brooklyn, NY 11201
Re: Request to Resign
Dear Brothers
By now you know this letter is about my resignation as an elder. This letter gets straight to the point because I think you brothers want to understand my request to resign and hopefully this will help avoid other men from feeling the hurt, disappointment and exasperation I have been made to experience. My request and reasons for it intend no disrespect.
Starting in February 1998 I expressed specific and important questions to you brothers about important aspects of what we teach on blood. After a few letters my correspondence dated March 1, 2000 explained in painstaking detail why my questions had not been soundly answered. In spite of this letter and future pleas begging for help and answers to important questions neither was forthcoming beyond mere recognition by sentences like —Each time this matter comes up for review by the —slave— class, taking pertinent factors into consideration, including those discussed in your letters, the basic conclusion has been the same, that accepting a transfusion of whole blood, or of its four recognized primary components—red cells, white cells, platelets, or whole plasma—would be contrary to scripture.— Replies like this from you brothers do not answer important requests for detailed and sound scriptural reasons for what we teach, nor does saying that some feel one way and others feel differently provide a biblical answer for imposing what we do. Statements such as that only say what I already know, that we teach what we teach, that our stance is what our stance is. I know what our religious position is. My questions have asked for sound biblical reasons for important details of what we teach and impose. Alluding to pertinent factors without identification and logical construction of those factors to a sound conclusion is no answer.
Given the time, attention and patience I have afforded this subject and you brothers, the inherent importance of the subject, and my sincere and pleading expression of need on the subject, being given no better replies until now has simply exasperated me on this very important subject, one that has often had life sacrificing consequences. Resulting disappointment is something unfamiliar to me given the source, but this only intensifies the distress.
On top of all this is the ambush I was faced with last winter when people started calling and writing me about my letters to you brothers. This caused considerable stress for me, and still does. One day Jehovah will root out whatever or whoever is responsible for this.
There is no way for me to know why things have happened as they have. I only know my questions and concerns are sincere and were presented honestly and out of loyalty to Jehovah. With one important exception circumstances now remain the same as when I wrote of my inability to teach without knowing reasons for answers. The exception is that the continued absence of sound scriptural answers to questions asked has begun hurting my conscience as an elder since publishers expect us to have reasons for our answers, and teachers should know the reasons for answers to the same detail they teach them, and certainly to the extent they impose them. I do not know those reasons on very important and telling aspects of our stance on blood though I have sought very hard for them. It is my conviction that today we should have reasons for answers we teach today. Furthermore, we should have reasons for those answers to the same detail that we teach and impose them. Otherwise we should wait before we teach those answers or details. This is waiting on Jehovah. It is inappropriate to ask people to wait for reasons to answers we are already teaching. (See Footnote 1) This circumstance has so seriously affected my health to the point where I feel I must resign as an elder.
My previous letters go into detail of why my feelings are what they are on the subject of medical use of donor blood. I will close my letter with two final questions, one of which is drawn from page 30 of The Watchtower of June 15, 2000 in the paragraph providing the stated reason for why we do not impose anything regarding some parts from blood. After saying “we cannot say” whether Christians should accept fractions from parts like platelets or plasma taken from blood, the reason stated is, “The Bible does not give details, so a Christian must make his own conscientious decision before God.” In line with this stated reason, the question begging for an answer is, where does the Bible give details on white cells, red cells, platelets or plasma as independent parts from blood so that we can say what Christians must do regarding them? What scriptural details exist for those forms of parts from blood that do not exist for other forms of parts from blood? They are all equally from blood. (See Footnote 2)
My second question is more basic but perhaps the answer, whatever it is, is more profound in relation to our stance on blood. Since the Bible speaks of blood representatively of soul, the question is, how do we reconcile our reasoning on what constitutes soul with our reasoning on what constitutes blood? Soul has two major components, physical body and breath of life. Together those two major components constitute soul. Apart neither constitutes soul. (See Footnote 3) We teach exactly the opposite about “major” components of blood. In effect we teach that “major” components of blood are blood even when they are apart from or independent of whole blood. How do we reconcile these two contrasting lines of thought as logical, and more importantly as biblical? This quandary goes to the very heart of one of my first questions—scripturally, what is blood?
It is imperative to maintain a tender yet not oversensitive conscience as we go about living up to our dedication and loyalty to Jehovah. In the future it might be possible that I again serve as an appointed elder, only time will tell. The choice to resign is not something I want. It is something I feel compelled to do in consideration of my health and after much careful and prayerful thought. The decision was a very difficult one, and it intends no disrespect to you brothers. Thankfully my devotion to Jehovah and faith in His wonderful promises has not subsided or been sidetracked in all this. In fact it is that devotion and the strength I gain from it that leads me to this hard decision to request that you let me resign as an appointed elder. I hope you brothers understand my dilemma and that my action stems from this brother’s Bible trained conscience.
Respectfully,
Your fellow servant of Jehovah
[Signed: R. Jensen]
Footnote 1:
Some Bible teachings we cannot exhaustively explain, but we can nevertheless solidly prove them as biblical to the same detail we teach them. One example is Jehovah’s infiniteness. We cannot fully understand or explain God’s infinity, yet we can teach it as scriptural because it is explicitly stated in the Bible. (Ps. 90:2; Job 36:26) In cases such as this we have no choice but to wait on Jehovah for further understanding beyond the basic fact of a matter. But when it is our own deductions and conclusions in question, and practices thereof, then we cannot reasonably assert that anyone must wait on Jehovah for an explanation. We must have an explanation for our own deductions and conclusions to the same detail that we teach and practice them. To think or assert otherwise would be illogical and unreasonable.
Footnote 2:
The following rendition of 1 Corinthians 12:14-26 illustrates this and offers guidance regarding independent members.
14 For the blood, indeed, is not one member, but many. 15 If the water [of blood] should say: “Because I am not hemoglobin, I am no part of the blood,” it is not for this reason no part of the blood. 16 And if the platelets should say: “Because I am not a white cell, I am no part of the blood,” it is not for this reason no part of the blood. 17 If the whole blood were white cells, where would the platelets be? If it were all platelets, where would the protein factors be? 18 But now God has set the members in the blood, each one of them, just as he pleased. 19 If they were all one member, where would the blood be? 20 But now they are many members, yet one blood. 21 The white cells cannot say to the hemoglobin: “I have no need of you”; or, again, the red cells [cannot say] to the water: “I have no need of YOU.” 22 But much rather is it the case that the members of the blood which seem to be weaker are necessary, 23 and the parts of the blood which we think to be less honorable, these we surround with more abundant honor, and so blood’s unseemly parts have the more abundant comeliness, 24 whereas blood’s comely parts do not need anything. Nevertheless, God compounded the blood, giving honor more abundant to the part which had a lack, 25 so that there should be no division in the blood, but that its members should have the same care for one another. 26 And if one member suffers, all the other members suffer with it; or if a member is glorified, all the other members rejoice with it.
Just as a fleshly body consists of members functioning together to make a body, so too blood consists of members that function together to make blood. The rendering above therefore demonstrates how no member of blood equals blood just as no member of the body equals a body. Verse 19 even asks the question, “If they were all one member, where would the blood be?” In view of verse 14 the answer is, if there was only one of the many necessary members then there would be no body, or in this case no blood. There would be only an independent member, not a body, or blood in this case. Just as each member of the body is necessary to the functioning of the body as Jehovah intended likewise each member of blood is necessary for blood to be what it is. Just as with the body, no matter the size or distinction of members of blood, all of them are just as much part of the blood as every other part.
Footnote 3:
Page 72 of our book You Can Live Forever In Paradise On Earth says, “Notice, however, that the Bible does not say that God gave man a soul. Rather, it says that after God started man breathing “the man came to be a living soul.” So the man was a soul, just as a man who becomes a doctor is a doctor. (1 Corinthians 15:45) The “dust from the ground,” from which the physical body is formed, is not the soul. Nor does the Bible say that the “breath of life” is the soul. Rather, the Bible shows that the putting together of these two things is what resulted in “man’s becoming a living soul.” (Underlining added)—See also the article Soul in Insight on the Scriptures Volume 2, pages 1005 and 1006.