The Elderly Poor,the Future,and the Church

This paper examines the future of the elderly poor in the United States in the light of the im act of certain demographic, economic, and political trends present& in place. These trends are then projected for four generational groups now of "working age" in an attempt to discern the extent of poverty among the elderly of the future. If present trends continue, an ominous future awaits those Americans now between twenty and sixty-five years of age. The capacity of the Church to respond to this situation is discussed, and a variety of roles it can perform are suggested.     

An Historical Perspective on the Church and the Elderly

Summary

Historically, the roles of church and society have changed with respect to the treatment of the elderly. These changes are traced. Beginning with the New Testament times, the shifts are reviewed in the Roman period, the Germanic invasions, the High Middle Ages, and the urbanized industrial times which reach into the present.     

The Church and the Trinity I: The Church of the Spirit

We are commemorating the tenth anniversary of the death of the outstanding young preacher Geoffrey Preston by publishing this trilogy. It was written not very long before he died and has not appeared in print before. Its other two parts, 'The Church of the Son' and 'The Church of the Father', we will be publishing in our July/August and September numbers.     

The Church and the Trinity II: The Church of the Son

The second part of the trilogy which we are publishing to mark the tenth anniversary of Geoffrey Preston's death.     

The Demise of the First Secularization: The Church of Gogol and the Church of Belinsky

The article presents Gogol as marking the end of a century-long phase of secularism in Russian culture, from Peter the Great to Pushkin, and as the first writer to represent the cultural phenomenon of the ‘New Middle Ages’ and renewed religious zeal, first described by Berdyaev; further, it highlights some commonalities between Gogol and Belinsky and takes Belinsky as a leading instance of ‘religious atheism’. The article goes on to consider Russian culture’s need for neutral ‘middle ground’ between its multiple and extreme polarities and, in this context, highlights Sergej Averintsev’s plea for an orientation towards Aristotelianism. These are the opening two sections of a longer paper delivered at a conference on ‘Russian Culture at the Crossroads. Art and Society’ at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas,’ 24–25 November 1997. The title of the full paper is: ‘Russian Culture at the Crossroads: Secularization, Demonism and the Transition from a Binary to a Ternary Model.’     

Rural and Urban Elderly Construe Health Differently

Samples of people aged 65 or older (N = 396) living in the metropolitan Omaha area and in the rural Sandhills counties of central and western Nebraska completed an instrument to assess health satisfaction, health behaviors, and attitudes toward heath care. Few intergroup differences were found that could be attributed to the area of residence. However, factor analysis and item analysis of the attitudes toward health items indicated that older respondents in rural areas may have very different perceptions of health in general and of health care services in particular than those of elderly urban residents.     

The Church in the Closet

Abstract

This article employs the metaphor of ‘the closet’ to explore the ambivalent status of the contemporary Church. The requirements of prophetic ministry and mission require that the Church leaves the security of the closet and claims its vocation as a counter cultural movement. However, remaining within the closet the Church enjoys the security and protection of the dominant powers. It is hard to relinquish these comforts particularly in contexts where ‘coming out’ may result in persecution or even martyrdom.