Perspectives on Aging: Jewish, Roman Catholic, Protestant

This paper will attempt to describe some of the religious, theological, and biblical aspects of aging, as understood by Judaism, Roman Catholicism, and Protestantism, in their traditional forms. By traditional forms, I mean Talmudic Judaism, pre-Vatican II Roman Catholicism, and the Protestantism rooted in the Lutheran and Reformed traditions. I am quite aware that there are a healthy variety of positions within each of these traditions, but this variety does not obliterate some basic shapes of each as they have expressed themselves in history. I am also aware that there are cross currents of theology that find powerful representatives in all three traditions, from the ‘‘fundamentalists,’’ on one extreme, to ‘‘process theologians’’ on the otherwith ‘‘charismatics’’ and ‘‘liberals’’ somewhere along the continuum between. Time and space alone, to say nothing of the need for a focus, preclude my taking all these cross currents into our discussion. It will be sufficient now to deal with the three great Western expressions of religion in their mainstream, more-or-less orthodox, forms. With this plan, all three traditions will perhaps feel poorly represented. Judaism, for example, will respond with a protest from the Reform group-or even from the Conservativethat they aren’t fully