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

by David A. Reed (Author) "Most people view Jehovah's Witnesses as a nuisance-they ring the doorbell when you're bathing the baby or when the family is just sitting down to..." (more)
Key Phrases: Watchtower Society, Kingdom Hall, Governing Body (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal
Reed, a former Jehovah's Witnesses minister, reveals here his take on what he considers the sect's secretive exploitations, brainwashing techniques, and oppressive practices. Reed promptly telegraphs his punch with the horrifying factoid that, with their doctrinal prohibition against blood transfusions, "JW leaders at Watchtower headquarters in Brooklyn, New York, have led many more people to an early death than the 87 Branch Davidians who died at Waco." His work is a strange (and thematically elusive) interweave of three motifs: Reed and wife Penni's 13-year involvement in Jehovah's Witnesses; the history of the sect; and a recital of well-worn mockeries such as failed end-of-the-world Jehovah's Witnesses predictions. Since primary sources on the sect are freely available in most laundromats and metropolitan street corners, nothing new is revealed in this tedious secondary source. Mainstream Christians seeking biblical arguments against Jehovah's Witnesses interpretations should consult Reed's earlier Jehovah's Witnesses Answered Verse by Verse (Baker, 1986). General readers are better served by R. Gordon Melton's objective Encyclopedia of American Religions (Gale, 1994. 4th ed.), which every library should own.?Bill Piekarski, Southwestern Coll. Lib., Chula Vista, Cal.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
"More kids are dying right now in obedience to the Jehovah's Witness ban on blood transfusions than perished in the fire at Waco, Texas," says former Witness elder David A. Reed. "How can a major sect with headquarters in New York City and twelve million attending its religious services worldwide quietly lead victims to early deaths without public outcry? -- Midwest Book Review

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 285 pages
• Publisher: Prometheus Books (May 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1573920592
• ISBN-13: 978-1573920599
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #756,848 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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35 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Jehovah's Witnesses' mind control and blood transfusions., December 2, 1996

By A Customer

A Review of Blood on the Altar Dave Mackmiller Blood 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

41 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Insightful, It saved my life, March 16, 2000

By	Kristy (United States) - See all my reviews

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.

27 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Very Good Book, March 25, 2003

By A Customer

I am one of those unfortunate Jehovah's Witnesses who allowed my child to die refusing blood for him. My 15 year old son was in an auto accident one sunday afternoon returning home from the Kingdom Hall with another young brother who was driving. When my son got to the hopital, before losing consciousness, he refused blood just as he had be trained to do all his life. My other two sons were there and my oldest son begged us to save Dak with blood transfusion he so despritely needed. My husband refused, and our son was flown to another trama hospital. Where to my relieve they gave him blood without our permission, being protected by the law since my son was a minor. But it was too late, his heart had been so weakened by the lack of blood pumping through his system he died. I praise the laws that allowed that doctor to give my son blood in an effort to save him. Women are to be in complete submission to their husbands wishes as head of the house and family. With our religious believe's forcing us to refused blood transfusions under threats of disfellowshipping or disassocation (shunning), made it so painful, and forced.

After my son died I began to research the blood policy, not believing that Jehovah and Christ could expect parents to sacrifice our children for this stand they insisted we take.
What I learned about the restrictions on blood sickened me. I came to the conclusion we had been lied too, with false
reasoning. It began an complete investigation into the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society background. What I learned I had dedicated myself to for 30 years was unbelievable depressing, it was nothing more than a totalitarian government under the guise of religion. I left Jehovah's Witnesses, and in the end I also left my husband who had refused blood for our dying son. He called me an apostate for questioning the WTB&TS teachings. I am only sorry he has not come to realize the lies he is subscribed too within the Jehovah's Witnesses organization. But all Jehovah's Witnesses are taught never to question anything the rulers called the GB say. The are conditioned never to question the teachings they claim are from God, and are nothing more than mens interpetation of the scriptures.

For any of you who have had assocation with Jehovah's Witnesses, or been one you need to read this book.

Sincerely,
A JW for 30 years