Michael Jinkins: Ministers trusted less than politicians
Prepare yourself for more bad news.
According to a survey conducted by “Scientific American,” “religious authorities” rank at the bottom of eight categories of persons trusted “to provide accurate information about important issues in society.” On a 1 (strongly distrust) to 5 (strongly trust) scale, clergy (at 1.55) ranked below “elected officials” (1.76), “companies” (1.78), “journalists” (2.57), and “citizen groups” (2.69).
I want to reiterate this point, just so we don’t miss it: ministers rank below politicians in believability and trustworthiness.
Maybe we have one piece of the puzzle why folks are not beating a path to the doors of the church. Note also that the question wasn’t who you trust to provide good “scientific” information, though scientists came out at the top of the reliability scale at 3.98, above “friends or family” (3.09).
This study disturbs me. The results may be influenced by the actions of pastors on the angry fringe like the one in Florida who advocate the burning of the holy book of another religious tradition. The results may be influenced by the outrageous congregation in Topeka, Kansas, that seems to hate everyone in the name of God. The results may be influenced by the endless culture wars and ideological wars that continue to rock mainline denominations. Or the results may simply be influenced by the anti-institutionalism that is so much a part of our society. I don’t know. But the results are disturbing, because faith and trustworthiness go hand-in-hand.
I want to believe that a well-educated clergy (i.e., ministers with the deep knowledge and critical judgment that come from careful study of complex issues in light of their religious tradition) could provide some bulwark against this erosion of trust. But there are very smart and well-educated people who have proven untrustworthy.
A few days ago I invited some of a few members of our staff at Louisville Seminary to reflect with me on this survey. They stated their surprise, since, as one staff member said, “Ministry is all about relationships, and that is the basis of trust.” Could it be that she has the answer? Have we forgotten ministry’s core competency: relational trustworthiness?
A close friend, who serves as the senior pastor of a large congregation, confessed to me that in his first year or so after coming to his church, he was so busy that he simply forgot to forge those relational bonds with his people that make everything else possible. He forgot, as he said, “just to love on ‘em.” He told me this as a warning as I began my tenure as president of Louisville Seminary.
The survey reminded me of a study the faculty of Austin Seminary conducted while I was their Dean. We found that one of the most important qualities lay persons wanted in their pastors was “humility.” They wanted a pastor who listens more than he or she talks, whose leadership builds confidence among the people, who can take advice, who is not arrogant, who (often this was the word chosen) is “humble.”
I would venture to guess that there’s something about science’s empirical approach that tends to undergird the trustworthiness of scientists. You might call it “humility in the face of empirical evidence.” The public may assume that scientists are less likely to have an axe to grind or an agenda to pursue. Maybe there’s something we can learn. But the second most trustworthy group, “friends and family” are not empirical scientists. I dare say there was a time that ministers were at least as trustworthy as this group. Our trust in “friends and family” is not built on professional standards, but bonds of affection, mutuality, reciprocity, and love.
Clearly, those of us who are in ministry have some fences to mend. Or, to reach back to the jargon of the sixties when the phrase was first coined, we have a “credibility gap” that needs to be bridged. The only way to gain trust is to earn it.
Michael Jinkins is president and professor of theology at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.
grateful for this
One note in looking at the survey--it's a survey of those who read Nature & Scientific American, not a crowd much inclined to like clergy's (especially the clowns Michael mentions) contributions to scientific 'debate.' I'm impressed that people trust their relatives so much. I trust my relatives on things on which they're trustworthy, which does not always include science! I love Michael's Augustinian reaction--there's never a bad moment to repent.
http://web.me.com/craigadams1/
It is ridiculous to think that a pastor who stays in their parish about 3 years or so can have earned any personal credibility in that parish at all. (That's about how it is in West Michigan currently.)
www.winter60.blogspot.com
Or could it be that after centuries of trusting clergy to deliver an honest message, we started reading the Bible ourselves and found out they were leaving out parts, not admitting its faults and inconsistencies, and just plain making up stuff?
how to earn it
You will gain my trust when you come and say clearly that there is no evidence for miracles and that scripture does not pass the test for historical accuracy. When you stop claiming to know something that you can't possibly know.
uh...
That would be like smearing all scientists because of alchemy or eugenics. Some clergy are reprehensible, sure, and some are saintly, and most are in the vast middle.
And to be clear
My first comment was a response to your first comment. As for your second, your asking Christianity to give up on miracles and scripture's historical accuracy (two enormously complex intellectual problems) would be like me asking you to give up your criticism of religion before I could trust you. Not really a valid ground on which to enter a conversation.
No wonder clergy rank at the bottom
Let's see, we don't build relationships, either because of short tenure or not making the time, and we don't have credentialed expertise in the important issues facing society. Maybe we shouldn't be giving advice at all to people we don't know about subjects we don't know.
Come now
This is too easy a set of denunciations ya'll. Not all clergy take short tenures, and not all short tenured clergy are unwise or ineffective. And some clergy have "credentialed expertise in the important issues facing society." In fact, those who've done their homework in theology do have the sort of wisdom people need--knowledge about the heart of God and the human hearts God heals. Again you can't tar an entire profession by condemning the worst of them as though they're indicative. Abusus non tollit usum.
Who does a clergy person's trust?
It might be that pastors need to overcome the fear that their people can be trusted. Not blind naivety but a willingness to trust that God is at work in the congregation before, during, and after a pastor's tenure. Congregation members lose trust in pastors when it's obvious that pastors are trusting in themselves and not God.
Once it is apparent that our trust is in God and not in our own ability “to provide accurate information about important issues in society,” our perspectives on these important issues may be welcomed.
trust
"I want to believe that a well-educated clergy ... could provide some bulwark against this erosion of trust. But there are very smart and well-educated people who have proven untrustworthy."
With the apparent broad decline of our churches in our culture, the expectations of our denominations have turned us into salesmen. Who trusts a salesman?
Yes, that's right
Yes I am "asking Christianity to give up on miracles and scripture's historical accuracy". I don't find it "enormously complex" at all. Children start sorting out the difference between the physical world and their own thoughts about magic at an early age.
It is not "like me asking you to give up your criticism of religion before I could trust you" at all. My criticism is based on hundreds of years of undoing bad translations and changes to the source documents and basic science like figuring out we are not that special in a 14.7 billion year old vast universe.
I can talk about the value of the teachings attributed to Socrates with someone who says that Socrates can't be hisotrically proven to have existed and consider that "valid ground on which to enter a conversation." A Christian said to me recently that I need to first believe that the Bible is the word of God, then they could have a conversation with me about what it means. _That_ would not be valid ground on which to enter a conversation.
Not all Christians
would ask for that concession before talking with you. It is a fundamentalist assumption to prejudice a conversation before it takes place. And it is complex to sort out what is historically reliable and what not. Demanding concessions in advance (as you mock your interlocutor doing and yet as you yourself do here) does not make for a dialogue, it makes for a speech with no audience.
But never mind all that. This is a leadership blog. Presumably as an atheist (or really a misotheist, the new term for those who loathe the idea of God more than simply disbelieving it), surely you'd rather have religious leadership like that of, say, Desmond Tutu than religious leadership that steals and kills and destroys. Wouldn't you?
Keepin' it real
Let’s not get too far off topic here. First, I am a lay speaker at a little United Methodist church, hopefully that qualifies as a “leader”. The blog clearly says, “I don’t know” after speculating on extremists and culture issues and not even a nod to speaking honestly about what they learned in seminary. You and Michael seem to be unaware that many people have passed on to the rest of us what they learned about how the Bible was written, how the canon was determined and how it has been altered. You have twice dismissed me with “it is complex”, when I know there is a consensus among historians that the mere existence of Christ can’t be determined from the evidence, let alone any details of the crucifixion. I am demanding nothing more from the dialogue than that you be honest about that.
I do not loathe the idea of learning from the story of a man who, when his hands were pierced with nails said, “forgive them, for they know not what they do.” That is a beautiful story, but keeping it under a cloak of mysticism and telling anyone that questions you that it is complex and they are being unreasonable is diminishing its ability to be a light unto the world.
FYI
I would like to add that I don’t ask for these concessions because I am angry or that I want to bring the church down. I ask for them because I think it is the way to bring the church into the 21st century.
This summer, I heard an interview with Bart Ehrman’s on NPR. He talked about the discrepancies in the gospels and how that led him to quit believing. Ehrman began life as a fundamentalist Christian and went into seminary knowing that some liberal professors would try to give him a new version of Christianity, one he didn’t embrace. Once he understood that he had been lied to as a child, he was angry.
Soon after I heard that, I heard a sermon wherein my pastor began by talking about the discrepancies in the gospels. He wasn’t angry about it, he recognized they were there and discussed why they were there. He didn’t use it as evidence to prove the non-existence of Christ. He went on to preach a sermon about love and honoring creation.
We can do that, or we can keep creating more angry young people who don’t trust their ministers.
Trust etc
John thanks for your comments. Again, I do ask you to be fair. President Jinkins' post is pretty hard hitting on clergy failing to earn people's trust. You attack him and me here for being "unaware that many people have passed on to the rest of us what they learned about how the Bible was written, how the canon was determined and how it has been altered." This is simply incorrect, and uncharitable. Jinkins is president at Louisville Presbyterian, I work at Duke Divinity School, these are not institutions that hide historical criticism from their students, far from it. Jinkins' post is simply about something else. So far from changing the subject I was changing it back to the question of leadership, which is what this publication is about.
Christian faith is founded on Jesus' resurrection from the dead, in which I do believe, on which I do stake my life. You should as well if you're a Methodist lay preacher. Something called "science" is not only unable to disprove that (a resurrection, like other miracles, not being something your or I can summon up with the snap of our fingers). When ancient Christians were mocked for this belief they tended to respond by thickening the mystery. 'You ask us to explain resurrection--why don't you explain the creation of all that is and is so good'? It's still a mystery, one that science and theology both shed light on, but which remains gloriously "mystical," to use your language.
Finally Bart Ehrman is still a fundamentalist. He once thought the bible was either all literally true or all false. He still thinks that, he's just switched sides. He is, however, making a far better living off religion than any cleric ever lampooned by Voltaire or Twain.
sigh
Jason;
I think this has run its course and it will only be a couple more comments before someone mentions Hitler. I did not really believe that you were not aware of historical criticism, but you approached my comments without mentioning it and the blog did not mention it, so I was responding to what was said here, not anyone’s background. I didn’t say “you are unaware”, I said, “you seem to be”, maybe a better choice of words would be, “you act as if.” A good leader does not shy away from the problems he has to work with or wait to be called out regarding them. Some clergy are starting to say, “okay, miracles don’t really fit with what we know today” and “we’re not sure who wrote this epistle”. If you want to exchange “shoulds”, maybe you should consider that as a way to earn some trust.
The story of the resurrection of Jesus, quite possibly, was part of legitimizing Christian faith and relating it to the Hebrew tradition. The core of Christianity is the teachings of Christ. If those teachings are not valuable, and we have to fall back on getting your ticket to heaven punched, then the current decline of mainstream congregations won’t end and the holy scriptures will be left in the hands of people who stand outside abortion clinics and scream.
I am not going to pursue a line of reasoning such as “science is unable to disprove...” I’m losing your line of thought after thought, I’m not sure what you’re putting quotes around or why, or why you would dredge up what a second century Christian would have said. I didn’t ask you to explain the resurrection and a challenge to someone to explain all of creation is ridiculous. I would label that as poor leadership and would never say that in any context. That is a schoolyard, “oh yeah, says you”, type of challenge.
You say that science and theology both shed light, but you ignore the very light science sheds, the light of archaeology and textual criticism, not to mention physical laws. You say you don’t hide from criticism, but you haven’t said anything about how addressing the criticisms currently assaulting Christianity might or might not restore some trust in ministers.
You're quite right
. . . that I didn't engage all those debates in depth. This is not an apologetics blog, and this post was not about the topics you raise, and I'm more than happy to check out, as much as I've enjoyed being called childish and ignorant.
You have shifted back to the language of leadership after saying that was changing the subject. You apparently think a leader, to be good, should also be a radical historical deconstructionist completely unaware of critiques of the Enlightenment. Ok, your position is duly noted.
On the second century stuff, I'm paraphrasing Celsus' arguments to which Origen responded, the scare quotes clearly indicate it is not a quotation. And it's not ridiculous to respond to the reductionistic Enlightenment fideism you hurl around with an early church argument against the same reductionistic fideism, pre-Enlightenment, of course, but completely prescient.
I'm not ignoring archaeology or textual criticism by not talking about them in this instance, just as you're not ignoring the science behind quarks or sea urchins by not talking about them in this instance. Clearly we have different reading of the evidence, as does an entire multi-century (I'd argue millenium) heritage of mainstream Christian thought, which Ehrman's work and your invective here ignore.
Finally, your words: "I know there is a consensus among historians that the mere existence of Christ can’t be determined from the evidence." You don't know that, because there is no such consensus, it is not a mainstream historical position that the existence of Christ cannot be determined.
And your enthusiasm for Jesus' "Father forgive them" must fade a little as you insist somebody made it all up, don't you think?
All we've done
…is to define the gap. A couple notes in my defense; I didn’t engage in name calling or mention critiques of the Enlightenment, say the Bible was all made up, or ask anyone to be radical. I do ask that ministry stop claiming that belief is the same as knowledge. And I still believe it was you who attempted to change the subject to atheism and comparing Desmond Tutu to immoral leaders. Your attempts to label me and put me in a corner are getting annoying.
You could have taken an approach that would create dialogue, like asking exactly which miracles I had a problem with or what inconsistencies I was referring to. Instead you made some assumptions about me and fell back on standard arguments for faith. A response like that leads to mistrust.
I guess I was confused. There were some questions in the blog, it seemed to be an invitation for discussion. Now I’m hearing from you that you only want to discuss relationship building or how one might gain trust, not where exactly are we leading people to or are we actually credible.
To Trust Or Not To Trust
I think science is thought to be most trustworthy because science uses a rigorous method of finding the truth whereas people in the clergy don't. Religion seems to be based on faith without much examination at all. And look at the priests who have downgraded religion by committing the crimes they have. I think it boils down to science is seen to be more truthful than the clergy and hence more trustworthy.
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