You Don’t Trust Me

Chances are you don’t trust me. Well, not me personally … I hope. I am talking about clergy in general, a group in which I am included. A recent Gallup poll released a few days before Christmas rated twenty professions on honesty and ethics. Clergy did not fare well. The question was: “Please tell me how you would rate the honesty and ethical standards of people in these different fields.”

Gallup has been doing this poll since 1977, which coincidentally is the year I graduated from seminary and was ordained to Christian ministry. The clergy rating actually went up in the first few years of the poll, ranking in the top two professions. In 1986 we began to slip in the ratings, and we have been slipping ever since. This past year clergy rated the lowest ever. Only 37% of those polled thought clergy were ethical or honest. At least we beat telemarketers! (Nurses were at the top with 84%. Members of Congress were last at 8%.)

Ministers have been wringing their hands over the results, but it comes as no surprise to me. I have been watching the change as it happened. The decline of confidence in clergy coincided in the 1980’s with the rise of Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority, which redefined the GOP as “God’s Own Party.” It was followed by various other groups composing the Religious Right, who promote a political agenda over a spiritual message.

The televangelist scandals of the 1980’s and 90’s did not help matters any. Then there was the Catholic Church’s pedophile priest scandal of the 2000’s which is still unfolding today.  Protestant, evangelical, and fundamentalist churches have had their share of sexual assaults and financial scandals as well. No segment of Christianity is immune.

In the meantime attendance at churches of all types has plummeted. Every generation of Americans is less religious than the previous one. For that reason a smaller percentage of people have a relationship with a local clergyperson, leaving their opinions susceptible to the prejudices of the mainstream media, which promotes stereotypes and struggles to understand the role of religion in society.

As churches have emptied out, less churches can afford fulltime pastors. That translates into fewer people entering the ministry. The closure of mainline seminaries has become epidemic in recent years, leaving churches at the mercy of ministers trained at fundamentalist schools or not at all.

The popularity of Creationism and Intelligent Design in Evangelicalism has further shaped the public image of Christians as uneducated and anti-scientific. The result is a picture of American Christianity which is less attractive to educated people, further limiting the pool of people from which the church can draw upon.

The political polarization of American society in recent years has meant that conservatives do not trust liberal clergy, whom they think are left-wing socialists disguised as Christians. Liberals do not trust conservative clergy, whom they perceive to be religious bigots who have betrayed the spirit of Christ. So the downward spiral of distrust deepens.

Personally I have seen dramatic changes in churches and clergy over the four decades I have been in professional ministry. Churches are grayer, smaller, more isolated, and have fewer children and young families. Clergy also are grayer, and many come into ministry later in life. One good change is the increase in the number of female pastors.

I have changed as well. I used to identify myself as evangelical. I don’t use that term any longer, mainly because of what the word has come to mean in popular culture. Even the term “Christian” has become problematic, even though I still identify myself that way. But I prefer the phrase “follower of Jesus.”

Just as the Gallup poll indicates, I have become one of those people who don’t trust clergy the way I used to. Pastors aren’t as vigilant as I would like in protecting children in their churches’ care. Clergy and churches’ attitudes toward women are too often misogynistic.

I don’t trust most clergy to have a basic understanding of church history, historical theology or biblical scholarship. I don’t trust pastors to have been trained in the historical-critical method, which for over two hundred years has been the gold standard for biblical scholarship. In my opinion too many pastors have abandoned pastoral care and spiritual direction to serve as community organizers and church administrators.

In short I think clergy deserve the failing grade that the American public gives us. I pray that this trend will be reversed, and clergy will once again be among the most respected, knowledgeable, honest, and trustworthy persons in the community. That used to be the case. I hope it can be that way again.