The social process of aging: Its implications for pastoral ministry

Aging, in the context of modern American culture, is as much a social process as it is a biological fact. It is because we perceive the characteristics of old age to be threatening to our common values that we relegate the elderly to out-group status and attempt to manage them, much as we do the members of other deviant populations. The result is the creation of a self-abasing elderly role, to which the aging are in many ways forced to conform. If our ministry is to affirm the humanity of older men and women, it is necessary that we cease to look upon them as complexes of typical traits. Only then can we begin to make the healing love of Christ present for them.