Do christians believe in blood transfusions?

Answer 1

Christian responseYes of course Christians believe in blood transfusions, and accept them with gratitude and love for the sacrifice and dedication of those who give their blood willingly. The Jehovah's Witness response below is based on a couple of verses in scripture, one from the Old Testament (which was superceded by Christ's teaching) and the other from the New Testament quote was written by Paul to a church in the Mediterranean area that had specific problems - especially with Jewish converts to Christianity who still obeyed the Old Testament ruling on eating blood (note - eating - NOT having a blood transfusion - nowhere does it ban this!!). Therefore, the advice from Paul was that the new Christians should temporarily not eat blood products in the presence of these new Christians lest it offend them until they were completely accepted into the new Christian family, and nowhere in Paul's letter was there any hint that it should be a rule for blood transfusions for all Christians for all time.

Therefore to all Christians worldwide the acceptance of blood is no problem at all, and, in fact, is a wonderful gift made possible by the generosity of others and the skills of the surgeon, whether or not it is deemed a problem by the group that call themselves Jehovah's Witnesses who follow a discredited and heretical Arian theology which denies the divinity of Christ. Christians throughout the world believe in the sanctity of life and the preservation of life as a God-given gift to us. To refuse a blood transfusion that would save a life is so cold hearted and as alien as taking that God-given life themselves. This is in stark contrast to the Jehovah's Witness family who recently, near where I live, cold-bloodedly watched their little girl die for want of a blood transfusion just because of one verse, written in a letter 2000 years ago, and taken tragically out of context.

Jehovah's Witness response1.

Do we BELIEVE in them? Of course we believe in them. But, would we accept one for ourselves? No way!

The scriptures are very clear: abstain from blood. (See Acts 15:19,20,28,29) So, of course we would not accept a blood transfusion, even if our life depended on it.

However, Christians have full hope in the resurrection promise given by Jesus Christ himself at John 5:28,29, and referred to later by Paul at Acts 24:15, should we die to to lack of blood volume.

Do some research on the many dangers of blood transfusions, and the safer alternatives to them.

2.

Yes and no. We don't believe in having a transfusion of whole blood.

We do believe in having a transfusion of all of the fractions of blood.

The danger or otherwise of having a fraction of blood transfusion or a whole blood transfusion are not the issue and are irrelevant. Obedience to our 'faithful and discreet slave' in Brooklyn is what matters. At various times in the past 50 years we have sometimes banned and sometimes allowed fraction transfusions but have stayed the same with regard to whole blood transfusions. Currently fraction transfusions are not a disfellowshipping offence.