Christianity Today: The Spiritual Reason Our Elderly Leaders Refuse to Give Up Power, by Russell Moore:
[Many Americans feel exhausted by our long-running political gerontocracy.] If this were a problem relegated to the political sphere, we could imagine passing a constitutional amendment that puts an age cap on public office, but we see a similar phenomenon in almost every arena of American culture. …
I worry many of us tend to confuse influence with control, all under the hidden assumption that “running the world” is the highest form of human significance. The problem is not that our geriatric leaders prize age over youth. The problem is the reverse: They and all of us prize youth over age—and that’s why it’s so scary for them to admit they are old.
Granted, senators and rock stars seem more narcissistic than the average person, but perhaps they are only the funhouse-mirror exaggeration of the assumption held by many who are scared to give up power—whether that’s taking up the offering at church or chairing the homeowner’s association monthly meetings. Many aging people cannot imagine being loved, respected, or needed without it.
The McConnell spectacle (along with the Trump one and the Biden one and countless others) carries an unspoken horror: What happens when I am no longer clearly myself to everyone else? What happens when I can no longer do what made people notice me? The 85-year-old grasping the gavel and the 25-year-old sneering “Okay, boomer” are confessing the same creed: Relevance comes with vigor, power, recognition, and control.
But is that true?
The Bible repeatedly affirms the necessity of the wisdom of elders and warns about the folly of youth (Prov. 16:31; 1 Kings 12:6–15). In revealing to Moses the specific duties of the Levitical priests, God allowed no one younger than 25 to serve in the tabernacle (Num. 8:24). This wasn’t because of bodily capability; a man was physically strong long before 25. The rule functioned more like a completed apprenticeship or vocational credentialing—it was about maturity.
The same revelation commanded, “And from the age of fifty years they shall withdraw from the duty of the service and serve no more” (v. 25, ESV throughout). Granted, given lifespans and medical advances, 50 was far older then than now. What’s significant, though, is that God sees the categories of “relevance” and “retirement” in ways antithetical to those of our cultural moment.
Levites of age didn’t go away. Instead, God said, they should “minister to their brothers in the tent of meeting by keeping guard” (v. 26). That’s what a genuinely intergenerational institution does, free of both the fear of death and the cult of youth. …
Elderly leaders have a moral obligation to step aside at the right time. At the same time, it’s up to all of us to build a culture in which stepping aside does not mean being discarded—or accepting that one’s meaningful life is over.
We should enable the old to relinquish control without surrendering vocation, and the young to receive authority without despising dependence. A healthy society is fueled by neither the envy of the young or the jealousy of the old but by a bigger, broader view of what it means to matter.
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