June 22

Page Two

Many say that the morality of the Bible is not practical, so they follow what they call “the new morality.” Has it, then, proved to be more practical? or less practical? To find the answer, this series of articles looks at the crop the new morality is harvesting, especially as it relates to children

The New Morality 3

“Chickens” and “Hawks” 5

“Baby Pros” and “Kiddle Porn” 7

Rape at Home 9

To End Child Abuse 11

The New Morality

The New Morality​—Harvesting Its Crop

Its effect on children

TODAY’S sexual revolution is shattering the fabric of society. Old values crumble as Self is enthroned and Me reigns as king. “Do your own thing” is the guiding slogan of the day. Is sex before marriage your thing? Do it! Is it extramarital sex? Do it! Is it homosexuality? Do it! Is it divorce on any whim? Do that too, no matter whom it hurts.

Not everyone by any means subscribes to this litany of the new morality, but the numbers taking up the chant are mushrooming. Books, magazines, movies and television are increasingly preoccupied with sex, much of it involving fornication and adultery. Afternoon shows called “soaps” reek with it, and they now spread like a plague into evening prime time. Supposedly reflecting normal human relationships, such shows are in fact a game of musical beds.

The gay liberation movement pushes to make homosexuality morally acceptable, and when homosexuality and the Bible’s morality become issues in TV shows, it is the Bible’s position that is made to look narrow and stupid​—typical examples are the popular series “All in the Family” and “M*A*S*H.” TV Guide said homosexuals have become the most effective lobby in television. Major producers and networks consult gay groups before planning programs with gay themes. Far more flagrant, however, is the present escalating invasion of the living room by pornographic cable TV.

Youths are imitative, and they note the examples or role models that adults are providing. What adults do has far more impact than what they say. And that impact is frightening! In the United States one out of every five children has had sexual intercourse by age fourteen. Half have had it before they finish high school. Three out of ten sexually active girls become pregnant. In the United States unwed teenage mothers have 600,000 babies annually, and 9,000 of them are born to girls eleven and under. Added to all of this are unreported pregnancies and those terminated by abortions. A million and a half runaways annually flee their homes to live on the streets, and thousands end up as male or female prostitutes controlled by pimps.

“A basic tenet of modern developmental psychology,” Dr. Sam Janus says in his book The Death of Innocence, “always has been the belief that between infancy and adolescence, sexuality goes underground​—becomes ‘latent’—​in the interests of psychic and physical growth.” He then observes that this latency period “is a thing of the past, and that our children are going straight from babyhood to puberty as fully sexual beings, with no intermission. The eroticization of children is becoming a fact of life in modern society.”

Janus later elaborates on this loss of childhood: “Gone are the halcyon days when little boys had time to join boys’ clubs, build clubhouses, and play ball. Some, of course, still do but the numbers decline. The same goes for little girls, who once played with dolls and hoped some day their knights in shining armor would come along, marry them, and live happily ever after with them.”

More and more children are being robbed of these years needed for physical, intellectual and emotional growth. Television commercials push kiddie cosmetics​—lip gloss, nail polish, powders, perfumes and other like products for girls three to fourteen years of age. Ads for designer jeans show ten-year-olds bumping hips in discotheques. Calvin jeans commercials have Brooke Shields provocatively posed and asking, “What comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing!” and “If my Calvins could talk, I’d be ruined.” The experts​—psychiatrists, pediatricians, teachers—​all agree that preteens are striving to look and act older, reacting to an environment saturated with sex, materialism and drugs. The childhood years are being telescoped, passing too fast too soon, and the child is being cheated out of one of the most delightful periods of life.

One psychologist said: “We dress our children in miniature adult costumes with designer labels, we expose them to gratuitous sex and violence and we expect them to cope with an increasingly bewildering social environment​—divorce, single parenthood, homosexuality. Many adolescents feel betrayed by a society that tells them to grow up fast but also to remain childlike.”

The most appalling proof of the decay of values is that there are obscenity laws, but the courts can’t decide what is obscene. Many judges are so busy wringing their hands over freedom of speech and press that they cannot discern the difference between legitimate ideas and opinion on the one hand and obscenity on the other. They cannot see that hard-core pornography, even showing on film or in print small children engaged in sexual acts, is totally without “redeeming social merit.” It’s like saying strychnine in meat must be allowed, since the meat part has “redeeming nutritional value.”

Previous to the new morality there were principles of right and wrong. Now it is the era of permissiveness. Now saying No is the no-no. Now the fad is, ‘Do your own thing. Forget love of neighbor, even if that neighbor is a six-year-old child. Now it’s self-love, all the way!’

The new morality that many extol as liberation is actually exploitation. In The Death of Innocence, Dr. Sam Janus asks: “Has liberation become libertine? Has the vaunted liberation of children turned them into sacrificial lambs on the altar of the sexual revolution?”

There are strong reasons for answering both questions, YES!

[Box on page 3]

The charge leveled against the Bible’s morality is, It’s not practical. So society has substituted a new morality. Does it pass the test of practicality? Jesus said: “Every good tree produces fine fruit, but every rotten tree produces worthless fruit.” Is its fruit fine or worthless? He also said: “Wisdom is proved righteous by all its children.” Have the “children” of the new morality proved its wisdom to be righteous? (Matthew 7:17; Luke 7:35) This series of articles, “The New Morality​—Harvesting Its Crop,” looks at its offspring. The look may shock you, but the publishers feel it’s necessary to alert you to a growing trend in many parts of the world

“Chickens” and “Hawks”

The New Morality​—Harvesting Its Crop

“Just as it occurred in the days of Lot.”​—Luke 17:28

HAWKS swoop down on chickens, and farmers keep loaded shotguns handy to blast the hawks. Today, however, those words can carry a different connotation. The “chickens” are young boys, the “hawks” are adult homosexuals, but the analogy ends there. The farmers are missing. The laws are inadequate, enforcement is poor, the judges are lenient and the “chickens” become victims. This problem is not new. It goes all the way back to Sodom and Gomorrah. But the last decade has seen an increasingly aggressive pursuit of “chickens” by the “hawks.” Their brazenness has scandalized those elements of society still able to be scandalized.

In both New York City and in Los Angeles some claim that boys are more in demand than girls. A Los Angeles police sergeant who works with child vice says: “The figures for this area show that it’s between 70 and 75 percent boys to 25 percent girls.” In Massachusetts a call-boy operation was discovered, where 250 boys were available for sex anywhere in the state for $50 and up. It turned out to be, however, only a branch of a national network headquartered in Houston, Texas. “Hawks” could call there from anywhere in the country and order “chickens” by telephone. Within half an hour a boy would be at the caller’s door, provided the “hawk’s” credit card cleared.

The “hawks” have formed groups and demand respectability. The Rene Guyon organization, based in California, boasts 8,500 members. Their motto is “Sex by eight or it’s too late.” Numerous other man-boy sex organizations exist. Lists are compiled that show where boys can be picked up in every state. One such organization has headquarters in London, with branches in the United States and other countries. The homosexuals are pushing for changing the laws to lower the age of consent and to legalize sex between adults and children. They are fighting for children’s rights, they say, and make themselves out to be crusaders. The Gay Community News said:

“The gay liberation movement is fighting not merely for the rights of adults to engage freely in homoerotic acts, but also for the millions of our society’s children to enjoy a free sexual life . . . and [for] the rights of children to control their own bodies. At a time when abuse of children by their parents is epidemic, it is ironic that it is men who love boys who are made into the ultimate criminal.”

Children’s rights to be abused, prostituted, sodomized? Their proclaimed concern for children’s rights is a cover-up for men whose only interest is gratification of their own sexual perversion. When the children become a little older these “loving” adults dump them back on the streets and pick up new victims. Willing or not, children at these tender ages are unable to understand the choice they are making or to foresee the consequences. They are victims. They are vulnerable. Misguidedly they seek affection from a homosexual and are psychologically devastated when they are cast off. Some are murdered. One homosexual man killed thirty-three boys and buried them under his house. Where has all that supposedly great love gone?

Support for homosexual causes comes from strange sources. The Bible is clear on its view of homosexuality. Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because of their practice of it. The Mosaic law forbade it, under penalty of death: “When a man lies down with a male the same as one lies down with a woman, both of them have done a detestable thing. They should be put to death without fail. Their own blood is upon them.” The same position is expressed in the Christian Greek Scriptures concerning such men: “God gave them up to disgraceful sexual appetites, for both their females changed the natural use of themselves into one contrary to nature; and likewise even the males left the natural use of the female and became violently inflamed in their lust toward one another, males with males, working what is obscene.”​—Leviticus 20:13; Romans 1:26, 27.

In spite of these Biblical denunciations, many clergymen and churches speak up for the homosexuals. San Francisco, the population of which is 30 percent homosexual, illustrates the point. One news report reads: “Much of the tolerance comes, somewhat surprisingly perhaps, from organized religion​—from the major Protestant, Anglican, Roman Catholic, and Jewish churches and synagogues. . . . Rev. Otto Sommers, the 50-year-old conference minister of Maine’s 250 United Church of Christ congregations, . . . says: ‘Homosexual sex, just like heterosexual sex, is a gift of God to be lived under the ethic of love. We all live under Christ.’”

Notwithstanding the pronouncements of many of today’s religious leaders and their church organizations, Jehovah God’s view of homosexuality has not changed. And, concerning conditions on earth at the time of his second coming, Christ Jesus said: “Just as it occurred in the days of Lot . . . the same way it will be on that day when the Son of man is to be revealed.”​—Luke 17:28-30.

[Box on page 5]

“The men of the city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house, from boy to old man, all the people in one mob. And they kept calling out to Lot and saying to him: ‘Where are the men who came in to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may have intercourse with them.’”​—Genesis 19:4, 5

“Baby Pros” and “Kiddie Porn”

The New Morality​—Harvesting Its Crop

Pimps and pornographers prey on the young and helpless

THE fastest-growing industry in America today is a brutalizing and depraved business​—child vice. It employs more than half a million youngsters. Most of them are runaways, from homes to big cities, where they become vulnerable, easy prey to pimps and pornographers.

“Baby pros,” child prostitutes, are used and abused by pimps. In the Times Square area of New York city 800 pimps control thousands and thousands of girls. Records disclose that hundreds and hundreds of these children have been brutalized, beaten, tortured and raped by their pimps. Some prostitutes end up murdered. Yet prostitution is called a “victimless crime.”

Pornography dips into the even younger age brackets. Children as young as three and four years of age​—who often end up in mental institutions or hustling on the streets—​can be found doing unbelievable things in front of cameras. But if seeing is believing, then it must be believed, because it is there to be seen in pornographic movies and magazines. Five- and six-year-olds are exploited, engaging in every imaginable sexual activity and perversion, including masturbation, sodomy, sadomasochism and even incest.

Pornography started out comparatively mild, but quickly escalated to meet the increasing demands of quickly jaded perverted appetites. It began with nudity, which moved into simulated male-female intercourse, and from there to actual intercourse. Then came homosexual activities, men with men and women with women. Bestiality was next. And, finally, child pornography, called “kiddie porn.” Children were shown in both homosexual and heterosexual activities, sometimes children with children, sometimes children with adults. By now “kiddie porn” has skyrocketed into a multibillion-dollar business, and yearly uses 300,000 children under sixteen.

Why such interest sexually in young children? They have been promoted by the media as sex objects. Advertisers pose them with their products, provocatively so, with windblown hair and pouting, promising lips. The young especially attract men who are afraid of adult women, psychiatrists say. The modern woman, the liberated female, equal and even a competitor, intimidates these insecure men. But the young girls, sexily attired and posed, look vulnerable, are nothing to fear, and are therefore inviting to such men. Presented as sex objects, these youngsters become sex targets.

Derek Eaves, a forensic psychiatrist who works with sexual offenders is worried: “There is an enormous increase in crimes against children.” He considers society to be in a moral crisis. A Columbia University professor says that provocatively posing little girls means “they are for sale” and is a step taken toward the destruction of Western values. Daniel Cappon, analytical psychotherapist, says: “We’ve entered the new Dark Ages of society. We’re living through the black ages of degeneracy. Darkness has descended on our psyche; people are more brutalized now than ever before.” Strong language, but maybe not too strong, when you read of a thirty-three-month-old girl assaulted by a fifty-one-year-old man. Or consider the sickness that’s evident when pornographers photograph and pedophiles (those who lust after children) buy pictures of a seven-month-old girl with her legs spread apart.

Psychologists Victor Cline and Frank Osanka scoff at the idea that pornography is a “victimless crime.” Osanka says: “Child pornography is nothing less than the photographic record of the sexual abuse of children, and the severe psychological effect of that has been clearly established.” Cline says: “The potential for real psychological harm from continual exposure to pornography is significant.”

The pro-pornography groups, of course, see no harm in their sickness. Several groups, such as the Pedophile Liberation Organization, the Pedophile Information Exchange and the Childhood Sexuality Circle, are mounting a counterattack against opposers. They maintain secret underground networks that operate nationally and allow them to barter and exchange millions of dollars’ worth of filth. Some of these national and international organizations are now surfacing to push for their “rights.” Pedophiles see no harm in “kiddie porn,” only because they are blinded by their own lust.

But the children used in it are harmed, often ending up peddling sex on the streets and having trouble seeing themselves as desirable in any way other than as a commodity, a sex object with a price tag. Here again, as in the case of small boys sodomized by grown men, the courts have problems seeing “kiddie porn” as obscenity. “There is a widespread fear that prohibiting a ten-year-old from appearing in a pornographic film might violate that child’s First Amendment rights.”

Incredibly, even some parents appear in “kiddie porn” films using their own children! And that brings us to the subject of the next article​—INCEST.

Rape at Home

The New Morality​—Harvesting Its Crop

Now even incest clamors for acceptance

“EVERY child has the right to loving relationships, including sexual, with a parent, sibling, other responsible adults or children.”​—Article Seven of “A Child’s Sexual Bill of Rights,” by the leader of Childhood Sexuality Circle.

All this time incest, the hidden crime, has been waiting impatiently in the wings, but now it is pushing forward for its turn on center stage.

Five thousand new cases are reported nationally each year, and experts say that for each one reported ten or twenty go unreported. One head of an incest clinic says: “I believe that incest is widespread in America.” A childcare worker says that incest is “more common than rape, and less frequently reported.” Some estimate that twenty-five million women in America today suffered incestuous abuse as children. Reports indicate that other countries are experiencing the same growing problem. “The latest thing now,” a new book on child abuse says, “is father-son sex clubs.” “The rate of incidence is so high,” one source said, “as to make prohibition absurd.” The strange logic is, if the crime is so widespread, why fight it?

The strangeness of that last-quoted opinion becomes understandable when its source is known. It is one of the many arguments advanced by the pro-incest lobby. The March 1980 issue of Psychology Today reported some of the incest lobby’s contentions, as follows:

“Some incest experiences appear to be positive and even beneficial.” “Incest in some cases may be either a positive, healthy experience or, at worst, neutral and dull.” “Incest fear has a chilling effect on the expression of loving feeling within the home.”

The writer of the article in Psychology Today does not agree with these pro-incest arguments. He says: “To be loved for oneself, for what one is rather than for what one can give or become, is for a child as urgent a longing as that for physical nourishment. But few children can know from infancy the difference between being loved for oneself and being used . . . to serve an elder’s sexual appetite.”

Time magazine of September 7, 1981, also published pro-incest propaganda, titled “Cradle-to-Grave Intimacy”:

“Very young children should be allowed, and perhaps encouraged, to conduct a full sex life without interference from parents and the law.” “Human beings, like the other primates, require a period of early sexual rehearsal play.” “Children really are a disenfranchised minority. They should have the right to express themselves sexually, which means that they may or may not have contact with people older than themselves.” “Such sex is basically harmless to the child.” “Incest can sometimes be beneficial.” “We believe children should begin sex at birth. It causes a lot of problems not to practice incest.”

The Time article concludes with some statements by psychiatrists. One said: “Premature sexual behavior among children in this society almost always leads to psychological difficulties.” Another who works with children concludes: “Childhood sexuality is like playing with a loaded gun.”

The popular slogan, Do your own thing, is also a loaded gun. The pimp may be doing his own thing, but it isn’t his “baby pros’” own thing. The sodomist may do his own thing, but it isn’t his young victim’s own thing. An incestuous parent may be doing his or her own thing, but it is hardly the small child’s thing. A child’s own thing is to be a child, to be secure in his childhood, to be loved by married parents. Love is thinking of others; doing your own thing is thinking of self.

Incest is probably the most selfish and reprehensible kind of child abuse. It is a grotesque violation of the child’s trust and dependency. It is the child’s closest protector that is turning on it. And the child is a damaged victim. “I have never knowingly talked to a happy, well-adjusted, unconcerned incest victim,” said Dr. Suzanne Sgroi, former chairman of the Sexual Trauma Treatment Program.

Dr. Judianne Densen-Gerber, director of Odyssey Institute in New York city, says: “In my own practice I have the hardest time imaginable treating these children who suffer from incest, even more than the kids who are battered, abused, set on fire, and whipped because at least those children don’t confuse what’s being done to them with love. The parent who sexually uses a child while telling him, ‘I love you,’ is raising a child who will be afraid to establish rapport, trust, and engagement with anyone else in his life, even with the therapist, because unlike the beaten child, he doesn’t seek affection, he fears affection and becomes extremely isolated.”

On page 129 of the book The Death of Innocence, we read: “Among prostitutes, the frequency of sexual molestation in childhood is 92 percent; 67 percent of them experienced some form of incestuous assault. . . . At least 75 percent of the runaways, on the national average, are escaping incestuous abuse. The same figures apply to cases of adolescent drug addiction: About 70 percent are victims of incest.”

And again, as in the case of homosexuality, the Bible views it as a crime worthy of the death penalty: “You people must not come near, any man of you, to any close fleshly relative of his to lay bare nakedness. I am Jehovah. In case anyone does any of all these detestable things, then the souls doing them must be cut off.”​—Leviticus 18:6, 29.

To End Child Abuse

The New Morality​—Harvesting Its Crop

The remedy works when practiced, not when preached

THE new morality is not new. It is only a new name for the old immorality. The tree is still rotten, its fruit still worthless. Its wisdom is unrighteous, its “children” prove it so. As it occurred in the days of Noah and in the days of Lot, so it is occurring in these last days of another immoral system. The crop being reaped is the same, only this time it’s a bumper harvest. And not at all practical​—very, very impractical. Especially so for the children.

The Bible’s remedy is practical, for children and everyone else. Even the professional people who are involved with the problem of child abuse offer similar solutions, up to a point. They know that bad family conditions cause children to run away from home, and that a high percentage of runaways end up on the streets and in prostitution and pornography and suffer appalling abuse. Some are escaping incest at home, homes broken by divorce, chronic conflicts with parents, lack of loving attention, and some are swayed by their peers. Whatever the specific causes, the remedy is the healing of family breakdown. So say the experts.

So does the Bible. It calls for close communication between parent and child. Concerning righteous principles, the command is: “You must inculcate them in your son and speak of them when you sit in your house and when you walk on the road and when you lie down and when you get up.”​—Deuteronomy 6:7.

The Bible counsels both parents and children on how to act: “Children, be obedient to your parents in union with the Lord, for this is righteous . . . And you, fathers, do not be irritating your children, but go on bringing them up in the discipline and mental-regulating of Jehovah.”​—Ephesians 6:1, 4.

Psychiatrists agree. They say parents must be fair and set good examples, but children need regulations and discipline. One psychotherapist confirms this, saying: “We abandon our children also when, hoping to make ‘friends’ of them, we renounce our responsibilities as models and as law-givers. This is a betrayal that children feel acutely because no need is stronger to a growing child than the sense of boundaries and limits. The child experiences them as love.” The Bible confirms this. “The one whom Jehovah loves he reproves, even as a father does a son in whom he finds pleasure.”​—Proverbs 3:12.

Some say that more sex education in the schools is what is needed; others contend it’s already too explicit and goes too far. One illustrated booklet for children, prepared by a Syracuse University professor, says: “All thoughts are normal.” “Masturbation is a normal expression of sex for both males and females at any age. Enjoy it.” Homosexuality is your business, “so choose the sexual life you want.” “A lot of people wonder about oral and anal sex, and some think it is ‘perverted.’ We think there is nothing wrong with any kind of sex.” “Pornography is harmless.”

Perhaps Johnny can’t read or write because his teachers are too busy indoctrinating him with the “normality” of sexual perversions. Sex instruction for children can be too much too soon. Dr. Greenwood warns: “Parents in their efforts to be liberal often overeducate, and they may be giving their children material they’re not yet ready to cope with.” Regardless of the pros and cons of sex education, the hard fact is the tremendous increase in child prostitution, sodomy, pornography and incest.

Those who greedily exploit children in these ways fit the Bible’s description, found at Ephesians 4:19: “Having come to be past all moral sense, they gave themselves over to loose conduct to work uncleanness of every sort with greediness.” They fit those of Noah’s day: “Jehovah saw that the badness of man was abundant in the earth and every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only bad all the time.”​—Genesis 6:5.

Only the Bible’s solution will end the abuse of children. Jesus summed it up: ‘Love God with your whole heart. Love your neighbor as yourself.’ (Matthew 22:37-39) The apostle Paul repeated it: “Love does not work evil to one’s neighbor; therefore love is the law’s fulfillment.”​—Romans 13:10.

This solution of brotherly love is practical. When applied, it works. Too many are hearers of God’s Word but not doers of it. Too many say “Lord, Lord,” but don’t listen to Jesus or do Jehovah’s will.​—James 1:22; Matthew 7:21.

In God’s due time all who embrace his kingdom under Christ will become able to keep this law of love perfectly. Then will come fulfillment of Proverbs 2:21, 22: “The upright are the ones that will reside in the earth, and the blameless are the ones that will be left over in it. As regards the wicked, they will be cut off from the very earth; and as for the treacherous, they will be torn away from it.”

This is the only way, the final way, to end child abuse.

Young People Ask . . .

Is Dating Really for Me?

“WHETHER you want to marry the boy or not has nothing to do with it. Dating is just a part of your natural development as a person,” said the older woman to her fifteen-year-old niece, Mary Ann. “You have to accept your chances as they come​—good or bad,” she continued. “After all, if you always turn guys down you’ll be unpopular and no one will ask you out.”

Mary Ann, who had just been invited out on a date, faced a formidable problem. She admitted: “I knew I was nowhere near ready for marriage. But Auntie’s words sunk down deep. Would I be cheating myself out of a good opportunity? The boy had his own car, lots of money; and I knew he would show me a great time. Should I date him or not?”

In many countries of the world the answer would have been an unqualified No. The thought of an unmarried boy and girl pairing off to enjoy each other’s company alone is quite unusual. Nevertheless, if you live where dating is the custom, you may wonder, as did Mary Ann: “Is dating really the best course for me?”

Young persons admit that there are a variety of reasons for dating. Some see that “everyone else” has a date and so they do not want to appear different or unpopular. Some youngsters lack self-esteem, so they must “prove” their worth by having a boyfriend or a girl friend. The desire for warmth and affection is definitely a major reason why many young persons date. “I needed to be loved and appreciated,” explained eighteen-year-old Ann. “Since I was not close to my parents, I turned to my boyfriend to find closeness and to have someone to whom I could pour out my feelings who would really understand.” Even though some will date a variety of persons, often they will settle down with one “steady” friend whom they really like and in whom they can confide.

Yet, despite all these reasons, there is another underlying force involved that usually provides the biggest push to date.

“The Bloom of Youth”

When a person reaches the teenage years there is usually a surge of sexual desire as the body becomes able to play its part in procreation. The Bible describes this period as “the bloom of youth” and recommends waiting till one is “past” it before marrying. (1 Corinthians 7:36) At this time most young people will have an increased interest in the opposite sex.

The powerful attraction between the sexes is described in the Bible as ‘intoxicating,’ being able to put one in “ecstasy.” Just being in the presence of one’s sweetheart can make one’s heart beat faster. (Proverbs 5:19; Song of Solomon 4:9; 5:4) Perhaps you have felt such a powerful force. The more contact you have with the opposite sex, the greater this force becomes​—whether you want it or not. It is the way you are made. The normal attraction between the sexes can degenerate very quickly to an uncontrollable “sexual appetite.” This can lead to sexual uncleanness and fornication, bringing a host of problems, including a ruined conscience.​—Colossians 3:5.

Where dating is popular, some would make you believe that your whole life fails or succeeds based on whether you have a date. This is completely false. By seriously considering some important factors, you can be helped to decide whether you should date or not​—regardless of what others do.

Ask Yourself

Has my personality and outlook on life become fully developed? By not settling down with simply boy/​girl relationships, you will be able to enjoy many different types of friendship. You will find through these that you will gain the poise needed to be comfortable with the opposite sex, without the constant pressure to ‘put your best foot forward.’ You will be able to observe married couples and see what qualities make a “capable wife” or a good husband. It will be easier to recognize the kind of mate you want, as well as to see clearly your own role in marriage.​—Proverbs 31:10.

Do I want to play with another’s feelings? Mary Ann admitted to herself that she was not ready for marriage. So she asked herself: “Do I just want to learn ‘how to act’ with men at the expense of another person’s feelings? Would I want someone to do that with me?” She decided that she did not. Mary Ann believed and tried to live by the rule Jesus Christ gave: “All things, therefore, that you want men to do to you, you also must likewise do to them.”​—Matthew 7:12.

What do my parents say? Your parents have no doubt proved their love and concern for your welfare. They can often see dangers that, because of your emotional involvement, you may be blind to. Did you know that, according to one survey involving 14,552 teenagers, nearly 93 percent of their parents disapproved of their children’s “going steady”? Of course, not all parents are against dating, but why would so many be against “going steady”? Remember, they were young at one time. Could it be that they know what real problems can develop when a young couple spend much time together? It is with your best interests in mind that the Bible says: “Children, be obedient to your parents in union with the Lord, . . . ‘that it may go well with you.’”​—Ephesians 6:1-3.

Do I really want to follow the Bible’s morality? You cannot escape the conclusion that the more you are around persons of the opposite sex, the greater will be your desire for sexual relations. For instance, Michelle, who began to date during her “bloom of youth,” admitted: “If you heat up your body sexually by being in the close company of a boy, the next time you are around him you get warmed up even faster. In fact, sometimes all it would take was a little spark for me to become sexually excited. And it’s so hard to control.” Michelle was not able to control her emotions and committed fornication. Do you personally want to avoid such conduct? Remember, if you toy with what can lead up to immorality you can end up getting deeply ‘burned’ emotionally, physically and spiritually.​—1 Thessalonians 4:3-8; Proverbs 6:27, 28.

What do I really want in life? Are you ready for the emotional traumas that dating often brings?a Are you ready for the serious responsibilities that come with marriage and caring for a family? Do you want to give up the relative freedom you now have to become emotionally and otherwise tied down? You may wind up feeling as did one sixteen-year-old girl who said: “I am tired and plain disgusted with myself and my preoccupation with boys and dating all the time. I know there are a lot more worthwhile things to be doing, but I seem to be falling into this trap again and again.”

Well, Mary Ann did not ‘fall into the dating trap.’ She said: “I determined that I was not going to be influenced about dating by the attitudes of others. I was not going to date till I was old enough and ready to get married and I saw someone with the qualities I wanted in a husband.”

In time, she did meet a mature Christian man and has now been happily married for over six years. “The interesting thing was that I realized that I did not miss out on anything,” reflects Mary Ann, now thirty-two years of age. “My life has been, and still is, happy and full. Our marriage just added to that joy.”

So be honest with yourself. Seriously consider what is in your best and lasting interest, as well as that of others. Though many of your peers may date, never forget that it takes real emotional maturity to say: ‘I will wait till I am ready for marriage before I date!’

[Footnotes]

[Blurb on page 14]

“I am tired and plain disgusted with myself and my preoccupation with boys and dating all the time. I know there are a lot more worthwhile things to be doing, but I seem to be falling into this trap again and again.”​—A sixteen-year-old girl

[Box on page 15]

Before Dating Ask Yourself:

● Has my personality and outlook on life become fully developed?

● Do I want to play with another’s feelings?

● What do my parents say?

● Do I really want to follow the Bible’s morality?

● What do I really want in life?

Something Better Than the Circus Spotlight

As told by Anton Ivanoff

WHEN I was young my goal was to have the best circus act in the world. I wanted to be in the spotlight. Years passed, and I reached that goal. I performed before the kings of Romania and Yugoslavia, the presidents of Turkey and the United States, and many other well-known political figures. I also worked with many movie stars. Yet I later found something better than the spotlight of the circus. But before I explain that let me tell you something about my life in the circus.

I was born in 1906 to a very poor family. We lived in the village of Dragievo, in the center of Bulgaria. During World War I economic conditions deteriorated to the point that my parents just could not support my four brothers and sisters and me. So in 1913 my father was forced to give me over to the monastery, where I was to be raised as a monk.

I stayed in the monastery for a couple of years, waiting on the monks. I would get up early in the morning to ring the bell, start the fire and light the incense. I grew accustomed to life in the monastery. The monks would tell me, “You’re going to be a good monk when you grow up.”

I came within months of becoming just that. However, things changed when my elder brother, Cristo, contacted me at the monastery. Upon hearing of my plans to be a monk, he cried:

“Are you crazy?” “You don’t want to be a monk! I’m going to come and steal you away from there!” So when he came for me one night, I sneaked away with him.

Eventually in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, I enrolled in a gymnastics course. I did well. The circus director heard about me, watched me perform and said:

“You have such talent you can make a lot of money. You can be a big star. You can travel and see many places.” Wonderful words for a sixteen-year-old boy to hear! I asked no questions​—I went with him to become a circus performer.

Life in the Circus

I worked very hard. I was determined to be famous. I was chosen to be on top of a pyramid of men and I did a handstand in that position. I also had an act where I hung by my teeth while holding two people. Soon I was in the spotlight of the circus.

Life in the circus, however, was not as glorious as I thought it would be. Practicing routines over and over again was hard work​—every day from eight in the morning until four in the afternoon. Then, too, competition ran very high among performers. Some performers would do anything just to be in the spotlight. For example, in Germany one Bulgarian circus performer, who had a name similar to mine, actually began using my name because of the popularity of my act. I had to take him to court.

If you performed better than another, you were hated and belittled by that person. If you did not perform as well, then your inferiority was magnified. In fact, I recall two competing trapeze acts where so much jealousy and hatred existed among the performers that someone from one act partially cut one of the wires, so that during the act the wire broke, killing one of the performers. Imagine, committing murder to avoid sharing the spotlight!

In 1926 I began living with Greda, a fellow performer. Her father threatened to kill me. So we left the area and traveled together through the Orient and along the Russian and Iranian border, doing Russian dancing and acrobatics in the cabarets. Then one evening in 1935, while we were performing, Greda looked out into the audience and was shocked to see her father sitting in the front row. She got very upset and ran to her dressing room, crying. I followed her, and soon her father was standing at the door. I thought he was going to kill me, but instead he said, “I’m going to see to it that you get married right here!”

The next day a town crier with a parade of elephants went through the town announcing that before the audience that very evening the two best performers in the circus were going to be married. Three circuses in the area got together and put on a special performance for the occasion. All the townspeople came for the wedding.

Some time later Greda got very sick and for three years she was in and out of the hospital. Then, in 1941, while I was away performing, I received a telegram telling me that Greda had died. What added to my grief was the fact that I hadn’t seen Greda for some time, and I hadn’t been with her to share her last moments. I couldn’t stand to be in Bulgaria anymore, so I joined an aerial act, traveling through Europe.

Performing Before Hitler’s Troops

By this time World War II was raging and I began performing before the officers of Hitler’s army. One evening I even performed before Hermann Göring. During the act that night I fell and tore a muscle. Göring laughed and laughed. He thought it was part of the act.

At the time I thought I was doing a good thing to entertain Hitler’s troops. I knew killing was wrong and so I was not in favor of war. But, on the other hand, when I listened to Hitler speak I believed that he was a good man, and he appeared to be well motivated. In fact, when I fell while performing before Göring and had to stay in the hospital for three months, I was treated as if I were a German soldier. I didn’t have to pay for the medical treatment.

However, my viewpoint changed as I learned about the mass killing in the concentration camps. I will never forget what I saw when I entertained the officers at the Mauthausen camp. As we approached, we could see the people standing in the yard. From a distance they looked just like skeletons. “What is this?” we asked one another in shock. “Why do they treat these people like animals?”

Later on the Nazis charged that I had been listening to the London radio station. They planned to execute me. But before this could happen, the American army came, and I switched to entertaining the American troops.

In 1945 I met a girl coming from East Germany on a refugee train. Her name was Gerda. We got married the next year and later on had a baby boy.

Coming to the United States

It was in 1950 that my brothers, who were now working for the Ringling Brothers’ circus, invited me to come to the United States. I accepted the invitation, and we performed together and were known as The Three Ivanovs. We appeared at Radio City Music Hall in New York city, the Big Top in Philadelphia, the Super Circus in Chicago, as well as on the Ed Sullivan and Jackie Gleason television shows.

Then, in 1956, while I was performing in Toronto, Canada, I fell and broke my hand. It wasn’t my first fall. In Turkey in 1927, when I was about twenty-one years of age, I was in an act where I held two men with my teeth while I hung upside down from a rope tied to my feet. During one performance the rope suddenly broke, plunging the three of us to the ground. Although I hurt my neck and shoulder, I was performing again within a month. Then, in Vienna, when I was about thirty-seven years of age, I again fell while performing and broke my hand. Three months later I was back in the circus.

This time, however, age was beginning to catch up with me. I had to leave the circus. I felt as if I had lost my whole purpose in life.

Little did I realize then that I was shortly to find something better than the “glory” I had enjoyed in the circus.

Finding Something Better

Gerda and I settled in New York city, where I became a waiter in a well-known restaurant on Broadway, and she opened a gift shop. Across the street from the gift shop was a Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Gerda became curious about the people she saw going in and out, and soon she was studying the Bible with them. Gerda became excited about what she was learning from the Bible, and in 1958 she was baptized as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

I was critical of her new religion. She would try to talk to me about the things she was learning, but I wouldn’t listen. I was especially critical of the name “Jehovah” for God. Then one day Gerda showed me this name in my Bulgarian Bible. What a shock! This name had been there all this time and I had never heard it, not even in the monastery.

I became curious. “Why do these people believe so differently from other religions?” I wondered. “Don’t they all use the Bible?” So when I would go to the Kingdom Hall to pick up Gerda from the meeting, I would go while the meeting was still in progress and stand in the back of the hall and listen. The things I heard caused me to examine my own beliefs.

For instance, when I was in the monastery, I was taught that if I confessed my sins at church and gave money, I would be forgiven. I believed and practiced this. Circus life was not very conducive to abstaining from sin, and I had my share of gambling, drinking and immorality. I fully expected that giving money to the church and making a confession would bring me relief from the troubled conscience that resulted from such a life-style.

But it didn’t, and I wondered: “Why am I still unhappy?” From what I learned at the meetings and from listening to Gerda, I began to realize that I had to make changes in my life. In fact, I had to change my whole way of thinking.

In the meantime we bought a house in Pennsylvania and Gerda moved there while I continued working a little longer as a waiter so that I could collect a pension. I asked one of the Witnesses to study the Bible with me and I progressed rapidly. I didn’t tell Gerda that I was studying until one day, in 1968, when I called her and told her that I was to be baptized the following week. She was overjoyed, and the next day she was on a bus to New York to be with me.

Since that time I have been able to reach some other circus performers with the “good news” of the Bible. Many of them knew me in Bulgaria when I had a wild life-style, and they could not understand what caused me to change. I have had many opportunities to explain to them the wonderful hope that I have for the future, that of living in a righteous new order of things here on earth. (2 Peter 3:13) In fact, Gerda and I were able to start a Bible study with one former circus performer and she is now also one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, along with her six sons.

During the time I was in the circus my happiness and satisfaction came from the praise and honor I received because of my performances. Now, as a servant of Jehovah, I have inner satisfaction and happiness far beyond the temporary glory of the circus, and I have a glorious hope for the future. So, instead of seeking to be in the spotlight before crowds of people, I now find joy in putting the spotlight on God’s Word, the Bible, and the hope it holds out for all mankind.

Air Conditioning and Your Health

AIR conditioning has proved to be a boon to those who must live and work in hot and humid climates. It has been a large factor in the development of the “Sun Belt” of the United States. Without it, not many would choose to live for weeks on end where daily summer temperatures range from 90 to 100 degrees Fahrenheit, or even hotter.

But, like many blessings of technology, air conditioning is not without its drawbacks. The ease of fingertip control of the temperature has led many to overuse it. “If cool is good, cooler is better,” has been their thinking. But medical researchers are now beginning to recognize hazards to health in the immoderate use of air conditioning.

Many persons with various ailments do not need to be told that excessive air conditioning hurts them. People with arthritis find their joints more painful. Those with neuritis have the pain aggravated. A person with sinus trouble comes out with his head congested. One with chronic middle-ear infection risks an acute flare-up of his illness.

In addition to the immediate trauma to those so afflicted, there are more subtle damages to the well-being of the healthy. These are of such a nature that the cause may not even be suspected. But when persons who work in air-conditioned quarters are compared with others, they are found to be more susceptible to all kinds of minor ailments.

Morton Walker says in his book Total Health: “Thermal stress affects the body when it becomes overheated or chilled. An example is sitting in a draft or walking into an air conditioned store from a broiling hot street on a summer day. The body responds, but when forced to do so too often, it shows symptoms of illness.”

Studies in New York city showed that people do not get acclimated to summer temperatures the way they did before air conditioning was used. The result is that severe heat waves now take a higher death toll. The trend is to build apartments and office buildings shut off from outside air. This trend risks suffering and death from heat if an extended power shortage occurs.

Experts who are concerned about the long-term effects of air conditioning suggest we ought not to rely entirely on refrigeration for cooling. The designing of buildings to take advantage of natural ventilation, more use of fans only to move the air, and evaporative cooling are some of the alternatives.

For those whose specific ailments are aggravated by air conditioning, the obvious remedy is to avoid it as much as possible. But of those in good health, not many will consider an obscure or future threat to their health a sufficient reason to forgo the immediate comfort of air conditioning. Nevertheless, prudence would tell us to at least be moderate in our dependence on it.

In public buildings you may be at the mercy of custodians who make it their goal to create a polar environment. All you can do is finish your business and get out. But where you work, and in your own home, you can do something about it. Perhaps an enlightening discussion with fellow workers will lead to a consensus to avoid overcooling. And at home, remember that your air conditioner is not to make you cold, just comfortable. Set the thermostat at 78 degrees, or higher if you wish. You will find this a healthier climate in which to live.

Will There Ever Be Just One Religion?

OF EARTH’S population, three fourths belong to non-Christian religions or profess no religious faith at all. One fourth say they are Christians. To list individual religions would be staggering. The Encyclopedia of American Religions lists 1,187 primary denominations in the United States alone!

Most religions do agree on one thing. As historian Arnold Toynbee said: “They all believe that man is not the highest spiritual presence in the universe.”

Do you agree that there is some supreme spiritual Person watching over you? If so, are you satisfied that he is worshiped in vastly different ways by both professed Christians and non-Christians? Even more important, is that supreme spiritual Person satisfied with the many forms of worship? Why can’t there be just one religion?

Before unity between religions can come about, we should see unity within them. In a special report published in The Christian Century, the former moderator of the United Presbyterian Church, Howard Rice, said: “‘If the world outside the church were to take a really hard look at us,’ . . . it would proclaim, ‘See these Christians, how they fight one another.’” Within the church, he said there has been “a crumbling off of congregations one by one . . . congregations bent on breaking away.”

Within the Catholic Church there is growing dissent. One survey after another reveals that a vast majority disagree with the Church’s antibirth-control stand, its forbidding divorced people to remarry, its claim that the pope is infallible when he speaks on matters of faith and morals, and its stand on many other issues.

Rather than consolidating, there is a fragmenting taking place, with offshoots of parent denominations setting themselves up as separate sects. Robert C. Whittemore, professor of philosophy at Tulane University, reports that in the United States in recent times, “more than 35 new sectarian groups have sprung up across the nation. ‘Christianity is being challenged today as never before by new religious mores . . . and attitudes.’”

Can non-Christian religions point to a better example? Under the heading “The Arabs​—Always uniting, never united,” The Economist says: “There are so many forces making for Arab unity that it is a wonder that the Arabs stay apart; and so many reasons for disunity that it is even more wonderful that they are not perpetually at war.”

Something More Than Religious Unity Is Involved!

The religions of the world are also deeply divided by their nationalistic and political loyalties, which, in fact, take precedence over loyalty to God. Nationalism is itself the worship of collective human power within local limits. Nationalism divides people, even of the same religion!

On this score, historian Toynbee issued this strong warning to professed Christians: “In any part of the Western World today, one may be confronted with the spectacle of the local national flag​—a symbol of the idolatrous worship of some local state—​being carried into a Christian church, and sometimes one even sees the Cross and a national flag being carried in church in the same procession. Whenever I see that, I find myself filled with foreboding. Here are two rival religions: traditional Christianity and neo-paganism. They are irreconcilable with one another . . . In the inevitable future war to the death between them, which of them is going to win? Here are their symbols, side by side, being borne aloft, with an apparently equal veneration, within the walls of the same consecrated building. For how long can they continue to co-exist?”

Does the World Council of Churches have the answer? That Council describes itself as “not a universal authority controlling what Christians should believe and do; but . . . nearly 300 churches of widely varying traditions.” It, like its counterpart, the U.N., merely acts as a forum where differences can be aired. While going through the motions of a worldwide Christian unity, they strongly adhere to their own separate expressions of faith and doctrine. Furthermore, this Council does not admit non-Christians to membership.

But is all of this reason for despair? Is God dependent on religions’ getting together before his purpose toward mankind can be accomplished? Never!

Is There Just One Right Religion?

Rather than expect religions to unite, it is wise to find the religion that pleases God. In view of the fact that there are so many religions, it is not reasonable to conclude that the religion to which a person’s parents introduced him in his youth is necessarily the true one.

To a Samaritan woman who had her own religion, Jesus said: “You worship what you do not know . . . True worshipers will worship the Father with spirit and truth, for, indeed, the Father is looking for suchlike ones to worship him.”​—John 4:22, 23.

Not all worship, therefore, is true. Worship with “truth” means accepting God’s written Word, the Bible, and all it teaches as the truth. It means rejecting all opinions and traditions of religious and irreligious men that conflict with the Bible. The one true religion cannot compromise with human traditions and political ideologies.

The apostle Paul wrote: “We know . . . that there is no God but one. For even though there are those who are called ‘gods,’ whether in heaven or on earth, just as there are many ‘gods’ and many ‘lords,’ there is actually to us one God the Father.” (1 Corinthians 8:4-6) For the one God of truth, there has been and could be only one true religion.

God’s purpose is to have the whole universe united in a perfect bond of love and unity, through true worship​—and that in the very near future.

Petunia​—The Playful Porker

AFTER years of moving from one city to another nearly every week, we came to expect unusual people and places. We were never so surprised, however, as when we pulled our trailer into the front yard of a home in Alpine, Texas. Rather than the usual small children or friendly dogs greeting us, out came a small, bouncing four-legged animal. Could it be . . . yes, it really was a little pig! But not an ordinary pink one. This one had gray, bristly hair and an arched back. It was a two-week-old piglet that when grown becomes the wild ferocious razorback that sends people fleeing in fright.

Davis Turmin, our host for the week, works for the United States Wild Life Service. In the rugged Big Bend country of Texas, he found a wild sow and two little ones. He captured one of the piglets and brought her home for a pet. And what name but Petunia would fit a wild baby porker?

We fell in love with Petunia. She visited our trailer each day looking for her favorite food, sliced apples. If we tried to pick her up she would twist and squirm, but finally she allowed us to lift her. Slowly we would take her in our arms and hold her like a baby. When we scratched her belly she would lie back with all four legs outstretched, softly grunting little “oinks.” Petunia loved attention, and she would rub her back or her blunt nose on our legs to get it.

Still she retained much of her wild disposition. One morning, failing to take the slow, patient procedure of picking her up, I grabbed for her. She bit my arm, bringing blood​—a firm reminder that she might be tame, but still kept her natural wild disposition.

In the neighborhood where Petunia freely roamed​—wild animals cannot legally be penned without a government permit—​there was a pack of large dogs. Could this tiny pig survive among such powerful predators? No problem at all. She routed them easily, in spite of the fact that Turmin had earlier removed her incisor teeth so that she wouldn’t kill the dogs. In the wild, pigs like Petunia run in packs and kill mountain lions and other wildlife, but ordinarily they eat cacti, acorns and the plants of semiarid regions.

Petunia soon became too big for a pet, running in and out of the house. Visitors were frightened by the charging wild sow, now some 200 pounds (90 kg), that wanted only to be petted. She was eventually moved to a new home with friends in the country, much more like her natural habitat.

But, aren’t pigs dirty, gluttonous and simple-minded, the last animal that people would choose for a pet? That might be their reputation, but the opposite is true. A pig selects for its bathroom a corner of its pen farthest from where it eats and sleeps. Pigs lie in the mud for a good reason: to keep cool, since they have no sweat glands. And they are easily housebroken too. Surprisingly, the pig can reach a level of training comparable to that of a dog. Were not millions amazed by Arnold, the highly trained pet pig on the TV show Green Acres? And while there’s nothing delicate about a pig’s eating, it is still one of the few animals that will not overeat to the point of getting sick, as do cows, horses, dogs and some other animals.

We are learning that many animals formerly thought good only for eating, whether domestic or wild, can make fine pets. When shown consideration and kindness, the natural instinct to be submissive to man surfaces. How satisfying it is to enjoy many of these animals today! What a blessing it will be to find daily delight in all animals in the near future when God’s earth will become a paradise!

In the meantime, some of our fondest memories will be of Petunia, the bouncing little “wild” pig with the affectionate disposition.​—Contributed.

A Look at Wasp Pottery

HIDDEN under loose tree bark are five distinct clay pots, each about the size of a small cherry. A potter wasp made these jars and stocked them well for her offspring. A lot of work was involved.

Just to get and transport the clay, she flew between 100 and 200 miles (160 and 320 km). If the clay was too dry, she wet it by regurgitating water. She formed the clay into pellets and used them to make a disk that became the base for a pot. As the work progressed, the other pellets were drawn into strips and used to build a hollow globe. Turning the inside of the completed sphere out at the top, she created an open neck for her vessel. The outside surface of her pot is rough, but the inside is smooth.

Next, a food supply was needed. To stock the vessel, she paralyzed small caterpillars with her sting and poked these into the jar. Since the caterpillars were not dead, this assured a fresh food supply for the wasp larva that would hatch from the only egg in each vessel.

The egg hangs on a fine thread from the top of the pot. How did the egg come to be in this position? In the process of laying it, the wasp touched the inside of the vessel with the tip of her abdomen and secreted a liquid. As the abdomen was pulled away, a thread formed and immediately hardened. So, when the egg came out, it was attached to the thread.

For females, the number of caterpillars is greater than for males​—the female larval stage is one or two days longer. Just how the wasp knows that a particular egg will be a female larva and need more food is a mystery.

With a clay pellet, the wasp closed the jar containing the egg and the stock of caterpillars and smoothed down the neck of the vessel. When the last pot was sealed the wasp’s work was done.

[Pictures on page 24]

The wasp’s egg suspended from a thread

A wasp carrying a pellet of clay to close the jar

Jehovah’s Witnesses​—The Surgical/​Ethical Challenge

This article is reprinted with permission of the American Medical Association from The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), November 27, 1981, Volume 246, No. 21, pages 2471, 2472. Copyright 1981, American Medical Association. It was prepared by the Medical and Research Departments of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, Brooklyn, New York.

● Physicians face a special challenge in treating Jehovah’s Witnesses. Members of this faith have deep religious convictions against accepting homologous or autologous whole blood, packed RBCs [red blood cells], WBCs [white blood cells], or platelets. Many will allow the use of (non-blood-prime) heart-lung, dialysis, or similar equipment if the extracorporeal circulation is uninterrupted. Medical personnel need not be concerned about liability, for Witnesses will take adequate legal steps to relieve liability as to their informed refusal of blood. They accept nonblood replacement fluids. Using these and other meticulous techniques, physicians are performing major surgery of all types on adult and minor Witness patients. A standard of practice for such patients has thus developed that accords with the tenet of treating the “whole person.” (JAMA 1981;246:2471-2472)

PHYSICIANS face a growing challenge that is a major health issue. There are over half a million Jehovah’s Witnesses in the United States who do not accept blood transfusions. The number of Witnesses and those associated with them is increasing. Although formerly, many physicians and hospital officials viewed refusal of a transfusion as a legal problem and sought court authorization to proceed as they believed was medically advisable, recent medical literature reveals that a notable change in attitude is occurring. This may be a result of more surgical experience with patients having very low hemoglobin levels and may also reflect increased awareness of the legal principle of informed consent.

Now, large numbers of elective surgical and trauma cases involving both adult and minor Witnesses are being managed without blood transfusions. Recently, representatives of Jehovah’s Witnesses met with surgical and administrative personnel at some of the largest medical centers in the country. These meetings improved understanding and helped resolve questions about blood salvage, transplants, and the avoidance of medical/​legal confrontations.

Witness Position on Therapy

Jehovah’s Witnesses accept medical and surgical treatment. In fact, scores of them are physicians, even surgeons. But Witnesses are deeply religious people who believe that blood transfusion is forbidden for them by Biblical passages such as: “Only flesh with its soul​—its blood—​you must not eat” (Genesis 9:3-4); “[You must] pour its blood out and cover it with dust” (Leviticus 17:13-14); and “Abstain from . . . fornication and from what is strangled and from blood” (Acts 15:19-21).¹

While these verses are not stated in medical terms, Witnesses view them as ruling out transfusion of whole blood, packed RBCs, and plasma, as well as WBC and platelet administration. However, Witnesses’ religious understanding does not absolutely prohibit the use of components such as albumin, immune globulins, and hemophiliac preparations; each Witness must decide individually if he can accept these.²

Witnesses believe that blood removed from the body should be disposed of, so they do not accept autotransfusion of predeposited blood. Techniques for intraoperative collection or hemodilution that involve blood storage are objectionable to them. However, many Witnesses permit the use of dialysis and heart-lung equipment (non-blood-prime) as well as intraoperative salvage where the extracorporeal circulation is uninterrupted; the physician should consult with the individual patient as to what his conscience dictates.²

The Witnesses do not feel that the Bible comments directly on organ transplants; hence, decisions regarding cornea, kidney, or other tissue transplants must be made by the individual Witness.

Major Surgery Possible

Although surgeons have often declined to treat Witnesses because their stand on the use of blood products seemed to “tie the doctor’s hands,” many physicians have now chosen to view the situation as only one more complication challenging their skill. Since Witnesses do not object to colloid or crystalloid replacement fluids, nor to electrocautery, hypotensive anesthesia,³ or hypothermia, these have been employed successfully. Current and future applications of hetastarch,⁴ large-dose intravenous iron dextran injections,^5,6 and the “sonic scalpel”⁷ are promising and not religiously objectionable. Also, if a recently developed fluorinated blood substitute (Fluosol-DA) proves to be safe and effective,⁸ its use will not conflict with Witness beliefs.

In 1977, Ott and Cooley⁹ reported on 542 cardiovascular operations performed on Witnesses without transfusing blood and concluded that this procedure can be done “with an acceptably low risk.” In response to our request, Cooley recently did a statistical review of 1,026 operations, 22% on minors, and determined “that the risk of surgery in patients of the Jehovah’s Witness group has not been substantially higher than for others.” Similarly, Michael E. DeBakey, MD, communicated “that in the great majority of situations [involving Witnesses] the risk of operation without the use of blood transfusions is no greater than in those patients on whom we use blood transfusions” (personal communication, March 1981). The literature also records successful major urologic¹⁰ and orthopedic surgery.¹¹ G. Dean MacEwen, MD, and J. Richard Bowen, MD, write that posterior spinal fusion “has been successfully accomplished for 20 [Witness] minors” (unpublished data, August 1981). They add: “The surgeon needs to establish the philosophy of respect for a patient’s right to refuse a blood transfusion but still perform surgical procedures in a manner that allows safety to the patient.”

Herbsman¹² reports success in cases, including some involving youths, “with massive traumatic blood loss.” He admits that “Witnesses are somewhat at a disadvantage when it comes to blood requirements. Nevertheless it’s also quite clear that we do have alternatives to blood replacement.” Observing that many surgeons have felt restrained from accepting Witnesses as patients out of “fear of legal consequences,” he shows that this is not a valid concern.

Legal Concerns and Minors

Witnesses readily sign the American Medical Association form relieving physicians and hospitals of liability,¹³ and most Witnesses carry a dated, witnessed Medical Alert card prepared in consultation with medical and legal authorities. These documents are binding on the patient (or his estate) and offer protection to physicians, for Justice Warren Burger held that a malpractice proceeding “would appear unsupported” where such a waiver had been signed. Also, commenting on this in an analysis of “compulsory medical treatment and religious freedom,” Paris¹⁴ wrote: “One commentator who surveyed the literature reported, ‘I have not been able to find any authority for the statement that the physician would incur . . . criminal . . . liability by his failure to force a transfusion on an unwilling patient.’ The risk seems more the product of a fertile legal mind than a realistic possibility.”

Care of minors presents the greatest concern, often resulting in legal action against parents under child-neglect statutes. But such actions are questioned by many physicians and attorneys familiar with Witness cases, who believe that Witness parents seek good medical care for their children. Not desirous of shirking their parental responsibility or of shifting it to a judge or other third party, Witnesses urge that consideration be given to the family’s religious tenets. Dr. A. D. Kelly, former Secretary of the Canadian Medical Association, wrote¹⁵ that “parents of minors and the next of kin of unconscious patients possess the right to interpret the will of the patient. . . . I do not admire the proceedings of a moot court assembled at 2:00 AM to remove a child from his parent’s custody.”

It is axiomatic that parents have a voice in the care of their children, such as when the risk-benefit potentials of surgery, radiation, or chemotherapy are faced. For moral reasons that go beyond the issue of the risk of transfusion,¹⁶ Witness parents ask that therapies be used that are not religiously prohibited. This accords with the medical tenet of treating “the whole person,” not overlooking the possible lasting psychosocial damage of an invasive procedure that violates a family’s fundamental beliefs. Often, large centers around the country having experience with the Witnesses now accept patient transfers from institutions unwilling to treat Witnesses, even pediatric cases.

The Physician’s Challenge

Understandably, caring for Jehovah’s Witnesses might seem to pose a dilemma for the physician dedicated to preserving life and health by employing all the techniques at his disposal. Editorially prefacing a series of articles about major surgery on Witnesses, Harvey¹⁷ admitted, “I do find annoying those beliefs that may interfere with my work.” But, he added: “Perhaps we too easily forget that surgery is a craft dependent upon the personal technique of individuals. Technique can be improved.”

Professor Bolooki¹⁸ took note of a disturbing report that one of the busiest trauma hospitals in Dade County, Florida, had a “blanket policy of refusing to treat” Witnesses. He pointed out that “most surgical procedures in this group of patients are associated with less risk than usual.” He added: “Although the surgeons may feel that they are deprived of an instrument of modern medicine . . . I am convinced that by operating on these patients they will learn a great deal.”

Rather than consider the Witness patient a problem, more and more physicians accept the situation as a medical challenge. In meeting the challenge they have developed a standard of practice for this group of patients that is accepted at numerous medical centers around the country. These physicians are at the same time providing care that is best for the patient’s total good. As Gardner et al¹⁹ observe: “Who would benefit if the patient’s corporal malady is cured but the spiritual life with God, as he sees it, is compromised, which leads to a life that is meaningless and perhaps worse than death itself.”

Witnesses recognize that, medically, their firmly held conviction appears to add a degree of risk and may complicate their care. Accordingly, they generally manifest unusual appreciation for the care they receive. In addition to having the vital elements of deep faith and an intense will to live, they gladly cooperate with physicians and medical staff. Thus, both patient and physician are united in facing this unique challenge.

References

¹ Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Question of Blood. Brooklyn, NY, Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, 1977, pp. 1-64.

² The Watchtower 1978;99 (June 15):29-31.

³ Hypotensive anesthesia facilitates hip surgery, MEDICAL NEWS. JAMA 1978;239:181.

⁴ Hetastarch (Hespan)​—a new plasma expander. Med Lett Drugs Ther 1981;23:16.

⁵ Hamstra RD, Block MH, Schocket AL:Intravenous iron dextran in clinical medicine. JAMA 1980;243:1726-1731.

⁶ Lapin R: Major surgery in Jehovah’s Witnesses. Contemp Orthop 1980:2:647-654.

⁷ Fuerst ML: ‘Sonic scalpel’ spares vessels. Med Trib 1981;22:1,30.

⁸ Gonzáles ER: The saga of ‘artificial blood’: Fluosol a special boon to Jehovah’s Witnesses. JAMA 1980;243:719-724.

⁹ Ott DA, Cooley DA: Cardiovascular surgery in Jehovah’s Witnesses. JAMA 1977;238:1256-1258.

¹⁰ Roen PR, Velcek F: Extensive urologic surgery without blood transfusion. NY State J Med 1972;72:2524-2527.

¹¹ Nelson CL, Martin K, Lawson N, et al: Total hip replacement without transfusion. Contemp Orthop 1980;2:655-658.

¹² Herbsman H: Treating the Jehovah’s Witness. Emerg Med 1980;12:73-76.

¹³ Medicolegal Forms With Legal Analysis. Chicago, American Medical Association, 1976, p. 83.

¹⁴ Paris JJ: Compulsory medical treatment and religious freedom: Whose law shall prevail? Univ San Francisco Law Rev 1975;10:1-35.

¹⁵ Kelly AD: Aequanimitas. Can Med Assoc J 1967;96:432.

¹⁶ Kolins J: Fatalities from blood transfusion. JAMA 1980;245:1120.

¹⁷ Harvey JP: A question of craftsmanship. Contemp Orthop 1980;2-629.

¹⁸ Bolooki H: Treatment of Jehovah’s Witnesses: Example of good care. Miami Med 1981;51:25-26.

¹⁹ Gardner B, Bivona J, Alfonso A, et al: Major surgery in Jehovah’s Witnesses. NY State J Med 1976;76:765-766.

From Our Readers

Love or Infatuation?

As much as I enjoy your articles, I found a point or two that I disagree with in the “Young People Ask . . . “ series, on “Love or Infatuation​—How Do I Know?” You linked romantic feelings with infatuation as one and the same. Not true. True love and romantic feelings have to go hand in hand. Romantic feelings don’t fade away but grow with time. I also think it’s wrong to say that because a person makes me feel good I am self-centered. All my good friends make me feel good and I hope that I make them feel the same way.

E. P., Virginia

We agree that romantic feelings are also present with true love. The point we were trying to make was that mere romantic feelings do not necessarily indicate that there is a basis for true love. The feelings may be the same whether there is true love or infatuation, but the basis is entirely different. True love does not stem from a mere superficial reaction to surface qualities; infatuation does. Also, we agree that just because another person makes you feel good it does not necessarily imply that you are self-centered. It can also be very genuine. But the point is, if, in your association with another person, you are looking only to see if that one makes you “feel good” instead of whether or not that one displays good and upbuilding qualities, then this can be self-centered and deceptive. It is not a basis for true love. Certainly our associating with persons who have good, upbuilding qualities will make us feel good and there is nothing wrong in this.​—ED.

Nazca Lines

I want to thank you for the article about ‘The Nazca Lines.’ I am a grade-school student and we got the assignment of writing a story about the Nazca Lines. I was very perplexed by this, but I was able to write correctly after reading the article.

Y. H., Japan

Helps to Cope With Life

Thank you for the excellent article “You Can Cope With Life.” It has given me the strength to continue. Your articles are very instructive. I see that you are honest when you speak of other religions doing what God disapproves. You tell the truth (I always check) when you speak of other things.

L. N., Italy

High Moral Level

I am not interested in your message but I do like your journal very much because of the high moral level it keeps. Your articles about family life and on subjects like drug abuse and abortion really show wisdom and human insight. Self-sacrifice, humility and a high moral standard are not popular today, but it is good that you do not moderate your views to become popular.

G. W., Denmark

Smoking

I am a new reader and want to congratulate you for such articles as “Is Smoking Here to Stay?” That helped me to break the habit after nineteen years of addiction.

E. M., Brazil

Watching the World

Numbers Game

● Leading evolutionist Richard Leakey has cut twelve million years from the origin of man. Last year he went on record as stating that man was at least fifteen million years old. Now an Associated Press report quotes him as saying that he was “probably wrong in a number of crucial areas” and that man’s ancestors go back only 3.75 million years. Playing fast and loose with the millions is common among evolutionists. And their disciples often accept the figures as gospel. But when considering such examples of obvious guesswork, might a thinking person not question the soundness of other evolutionary claims?

Thousands Just Disappear

● Worldwide, some twenty-one hundred persons disappeared in 1981, according to a report by a special UN panel. It was pointed out, however, that this is only a small fraction of the total number. Many abductions are not reported due to fear of reprisals. The panel reviewed cases in twenty-two countries and reported disappearances to the governments involved or sent telegrams in an effort to save lives. However, many nations do not respond to requests for information on the disappearances, which, the panel says, is “one of the most serious [violations] in the field of human rights.”

‘Practice What They Preach’?

● The adverse health effects of smoking are the “most important public-health issue of our time,” stated the new US surgeon general, Dr. C. Everett Koop. Yet, reportedly, the United States has put pressure on Japan to increase its import of American tobacco from less than 1 percent to 10 percent of the Japanese market. It is no wonder, then, that two national groups in Japan have protested to President Reagan over this pressure. According to the Daily Yomiuri, the groups state that it is not a “friendly” act to push a product that bears a warning in the US that it is “harmful to health,” and that, due to its health hazards, is not allowed to be advertised on radio and television.

Sweden’s Bygone Era

● “I do not think that the Church of Sweden can carry on like this much longer,” declared Ingmar Ström, a former bishop of the Church of Sweden. Noting the situation of the big churches in the large cities, he said: “If the priest, the organist and the vergers [attendants] were not paid with tax money and if the churches were not kept in repairs and heated by means of tax money, they could not continue.” His solution? “Let the big empty churches remain but sell them, make them into concert halls, church operas, . . . exhibition halls, swimming pools, whatever you want, only do not let them become depressing mausoleums of an era that is gone forever.” The bishop cites the example of a church “that at the Sunday morning service usually has a verger, two old men from the old people’s home and, at times, the priest’s wife in attendance.”

Handling Blood Dangerous

● It has long been known that hepatitis often results from blood transfusions. Now a report from New Zealand shows the extent of danger from merely handling blood. In a nine-month study, over 20 percent of the laboratory staff handling blood samples in Auckland hospitals were found to be infected with the hepatitis B virus. This is “significantly higher” than in laboratories that did not handle blood or even in new blood donors, said the report. The danger increased with age and the length of a person’s employment in the laboratory. Commenting on this, the Auckland Star newspaper states that “all blood samples” should be treated as “potentially infective.” Pointing to the “many opportunities for accidental contamination” by those handling blood, the Star said it would be difficult for laboratory technicians to “avoid infection unless exceptional high-cost precautions were taken.”

Livestock Live High

● According to a report in the International Herald Tribune, pigs, chickens and cows in the Ukraine have been feasting on bread and cereals meant for human consumption. Why? Because feed grain prices are high, while the government keeps the price of bread low. So villagers, who are allowed to keep some livestock on their small personal plots of land, have resorted to feeding them bread instead of animal feed. In an effort to stop this practice, Soviet authorities are said to have ordered a crackdown on those doing so; and severe penalties, including prison terms, have been imposed. In addition, they have limited individual purchases of bread to two kilograms (4.4 lbs.). The Soviet Union is expected to import a record forty-three million tons of grain this year, but this is not enough to cover the shortages caused by the third consecutive poor grain harvest.

Computer “Nightmare”

● Changing to computer operations is often difficult enough, but it became a “nightmare” for those working to computerize the banking operations for the Bank of Papua New Guinea. First, reports the Auckland Star, was the problem of language. Over seven hundred languages are spoken in New Guinea. What to use in programming the computer was solved when a survey revealed that most of the inhabitants had a “workable knowledge​—speaking and writing—​of pidgin-English-German.” Then there was the problem of the “one-talk culture,” where assets are shared by all those in a tribe that speak the same language. After that was solved came the problems caused by the custom of “changing your name whenever you feel like it.” The solution was found in controlling accounts by combinations of names and numbers, and giving the computer the capability to change names with account numbers.

Not ‘Persecuted’?

● In a recent statement mainland Chinese Catholics have denounced Pope John Paul II for claiming that Catholics in China are being persecuted. Calling it “vicious slander based on false testimonies,” they threatened to “launch a counterattack” if the pope does not stop “his false testimonies and accusations.” According to the New York Times, the pope had “compared the situation of Chinese Catholics to the persecution of the early Christians,” and asked that prayers be said for them. The Chinese statement, issued on behalf of three Catholic organizations recognized by the Chinese government, claims to represent the views of all Chinese Catholics. It pointed to the freedom they have enjoyed in recent years allowing them to restore over two hundred churches and worship more freely. “Chinese Catholics are nervous that this could be jeopardized if the Vatican presses too hard,” said the Times. Much of this freedom has resulted from backing the government’s policies and refusing to submit to the Vatican.

Orient Express Revived

● The famed Orient Express, closed in 1977 as a victim of cheap air travel, is being revived. According to the New York Times report, two separate trains will be used for the three-times-a-week service between London, Paris and Venice. For a one-way fare of $550, passengers can begin their twenty-four-hour journey across Europe in one of some thirty-five original cars, meticulously restored to their former splendor. Full booking is expected for this train ride, which offers one the opportunity to travel in old-world elegance. It was in Orient Express car No. 2419 that the German high command surrendered in 1918. Hitler sought revenge in 1940 by having the defeated generals of France surrender in the same car and location.

Paris Plundered

● Your chances of being a victim of burglary are higher in Paris than in any other world capital, says London’s Sunday Telegraph. Twenty-five out of every thousand Parisians were victims of burglary in 1980, compared with twenty-two in New York, seventeen in London and four in Tokyo. However, countrywide the figures are different. France then places seventh with five victims per thousand, compared with eleven for Britain, twelve for Germany and the United States topping the list with fifteen.

“Unfocused Christianity”

● Most Canadians “no longer look to religion for answers to the meaning of life,” says Professor Reginald Bibby of the University of Lethbridge. Yet 90 percent “claim Christian affiliation to a census-taker.” His recent study of religious trends in Canada, according to the Toronto Star, shows that the majority of the population have their “day-to-day focus on survival issues such as jobs, family, health, and money.” Calling it “unfocused Christianity,” Bibby says it has left most Canadians “without answers to the meaning of life and death.” On the other hand, his study revealed that the majority of Canadians “are intrigued by, or believe in ‘supranatural’ phenomena such as astrology, extrasensory perception, mental telepathy, precognition and premonition.”

Back to Sails?

● The Shin Aitoku Maru was the first modern cargo ship to use sails in addition to an engine. Now, after a year’s operation, her owners claim to have achieved a 10 percent saving of fuel costs due to the use of the two computer-operated sails alone. In addition, the ship is reported to have performed very well, even in rough seas. As stated in London’s Financial Times, when the idea was first introduced “the reaction of the industries concerned was generally not to pursue it too far.” Now, it reports, there have been inquiries from many shipowners about sail-equipped ships of all types.

Crime Goes to Dogs

● Dog bites are not a crime, but they are an indicator of the growing crime rate in the United States. How so? “With the rising crime rate,” explains American Medical News, “more people are buying or renting large​—and sometimes vicious—​dogs to protect their families or property from crime.” The problem is that children are the most frequent victims of dog bites​—often by the family’s own dog. And pediatric investigators found that “90% of the children under age four were bitten at home while their parents were present.”

“X-Rated” Music

● A Pasadena, California, radio station commonly plays music by groups that specialize in suggestive lyrics. But it was picketed recently for broadcasting a song about a young man’s homosexual leanings. The Associated Press reported that the station’s regular listeners were amused that it should be picketed for a song they considered relatively mild, when other music regularly played is far more suggestive. “What’s new in the field of controversial music is not so much that it exists,” said the news service, “but that in the last year or two it appears to be gaining more acceptance by major record companies . . . Rock music lyrics are virtually immune to obscenity complaints because they are considered by the Federal Communications Commission as artistic expression and thereby protected by the First Amendment.”

Death​—A Door to What?

What happens to us when we die? Does death open the door to another life?

Read reliable answers in Is This Life All There Is? You will find enlightening such chapters as “Do the Dead Need Your Help?” and “Can You Talk with the Dead?” Receive, postpaid, this 192-page book by sending only 75 cents.

Please send the hardbound book Is This Life All There Is? I enclose 75 cents (US).

‘She Knows All the Bible Answers’

A woman in New York State sent a former classmate, who was raising a family, a copy of My Book of Bible Stories. After a while the woman received a letter from her former classmate. She wrote in reference to her daughter:

“Elizabeth just loves the book​—it’s the only one she wants me to read to her at night. She gets five stories (because she’s five) a night, and last week her Sunday-school teacher told me that she can always count on Elizabeth to know all the answers to Biblical questions. So it must have been written by someone who really understands what children like.”

The New York woman observes regarding her former classmate: “This was her honest reaction, as she is very forthright and would not praise the book if she did not like it.”

We feel that you, too, will treasure this beautifully illustrated, large-print publication. Its 116 Bible accounts give the reader an idea of what the Bible is all about. These stories appear in the order in which the events occurred in history. You will find this really helpful to learning when, in relation to other events, things happened in history. Receive this valuable 256-page book by filling in and mailing the coupon.

Please send me, postpaid, the hardbound book My Book of Bible Stories, for which I enclose $2.50 (US).