Brad Littlejohn: Honoring our elders

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, February 20th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Up next: President Biden’s mental fitness.

WORLD Opinions commentator Brad Littlejohn says the Bible calls us to honor our elders … and that includes acknowledging limitations.

BRAD LITTLEJOHN: Talk about a Pyrrhic victory. When Special Counsel Robert Hur announced that he would not prosecute President Joe Biden for his mishandling of classified documents, Democrats were not exactly taking a victory lap. They were in full damage-control mode over the report’s conclusion that Biden was not guilty because he did not have the mental clarity to be guilty.

What’s most telling, though, is the defense that many on the left have adopted– denouncing Hur or anyone who echoes his conclusions as purveyors of “ageism.” What, you may ask, is “ageism”?

A recent addition to the pantheon of prejudices, ageism refers to “prejudice or discrimination on the grounds of a person’s age.” And to be sure, ageism names a real problem. Leviticus admonishes,“Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honor the face of the old man, and fear thy God: I am the LORD.” Our modern society violates this injunction constantly and not just by sniggering at the mental lapses of an aging statesman. When we pretend that aging is something shameful to be masked by Botox and surgeries, or when we hide the elderly away in nursing homes to be cared for by underpaid nurses, we dishonor the hoary head.

The fashionable denunciation of “ageism” is even worse. “Prejudice” may be bad by definition, but “discrimination”? Are we really not supposed to discriminate on the basis of someone’s age? Are 10-year-olds or 90-year-olds as safe behind the wheel of a car as 30-year-olds? The fact is that age and aging are real—our bodies really do grow and strengthen, and then, eventually, weaken and wither. Our minds mature and sharpen, and then, at last, often begin to fade into forgetfulness.

There is no shame in this, but it makes sense that progressives cannot accept this reality.

For decades now progressives have been committed to the abolition of man’s natural limitations, treating our bodies as Play-Doh to be molded according to our desires. Nature is often too stubborn to yield, and so we engage in make-believe: pretending that an unborn child is a parasitical, unfeeling “fetus”; pretending that two men can start a family together; pretending that a male athlete can be a female swimming champion.

So too with age. Confronted with the unyielding tendency of our bodies to get achy, shaky, and wrinkly, and of our minds to get foggy, we can respond in one of two ways. We may remember that we, too, are not invincible, but will one day weaken and die. We may recognize the aged as among the “least of these” that we are called to cherish and care for, and we may honor the hoary head for the wisdom and tradition they continue to embody.

Or else we may shut our eyes and clinch our fists against the reality of impending death and its early warning signs of shaking limbs and mental lapses. We may lie through gritted teeth and say, “80 is the new 50!” But reality always has the last laugh.

I’m Brad Littlejohn.

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