Should We Trust Churches?

And if so, how?

Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash

One of the stories of the contemporary world’s unraveling is the story of loss of social trust, particularly in institutions. And one of those institutions is organized religion. According to

Ryan Burge

, “In the most recent data, about 15% of folks expressed a great deal of confidence in religion, while the share who had hardly any trust has risen from 15% in 1972 to 35% today.” This is not just true among atheists. Even evangelicals have grown skeptical: “about 40% of evangelicals had a great deal of trust in 1972, that’s dropped by nearly half over the last fifty years.” We simply don’t trust religious institutions as we did fifty years ago. While it’s not hard to imagine reasons for this decline in trust (we’ll get to that momentarily) what I want to focus on is the question, Should we trust churches? Obviously, not all churches are trustworthy, some aren’t even orthodox! But setting matters of prudence aside for a moment, Should we desire and work to trust churches and other religious institutions or should we have a posture of skepticism? Put differently, what do we lose if we hold a posture of skepticism toward religious institutions and what do we risk?

The first point that must be acknowledged is that religious institutions, maybe especially churches, have long histories of abuse, neglect, and other actions that disqualify them in individual cases from deserving trust. There are plenty examples to point to of pastoral abuse and church hurt. The Internet has only made this more visible, as people widely publicize every time a minister gets caught in an abuse scandal anywhere in America, making it difficult for us to reasonably evaluate how common these cases actually are.¹ But however common they are, they are too common. They should not be happening at all. But examples of abuse do not mean that religious institutions are something we should be skeptical about. In fact, we should have trust and confidence in the Church, Christ’s Body here on Earth, even while we mournfully acknowledge the wickedness existing in some churches.

The danger of not being skeptical is that we allow abusive, manipulative, egotistical people into positions of power where they can cause serious harm, particularly to vulnerable people under their care. And in response, we can put up a barrier, remain suspicious of leaders, refuse to submit to elders, never join a church, watch church from home, be “spiritual but not religious,” and so on. I want to acknowledge that if you have gone through an experience of trauma in the church, you may need a period of healing and therapy before you feel safe to fully trust a pastor again. But the point here is that with the posture of skepticism you aren’t processing trauma and moving toward healing; you’ve made a decision (as many Americans have!) not to trust religious institutions at all. You are simply skeptical of the entire idea of the leadership of the church. Rather than using the virtue of prudence to consider the structures and policies of the church (what kind of protections do they have in place for child abuse, are there strong elders in place to hold the pastor accountable, etc) and ensure that they are healthy, you hold the church at an arm’s length. But I don’t think it has to be this way. I think we can be circumspect without falling into skepticism. Trusting but cautious.

Of course, even the most prudent person can be fooled by a church or a minister into thinking that the space is safe when it’s actually not, but that is a normal part of life. And I think this is a crucial part of our trust crisis. We have the belief that being let down by human sin is a reason to give up trust, rather than a normal part of human existence. Institutions are going to fail us. That’s normative. It’s not a reason to stop trusting them. It’s a reason to stop putting absolute trust in them. It’s a reason to stop imagining them to be perfect. That kind of trust is reserved for God alone. For everything else, we need to be resilient. Not fools, but resilient. I’m not advocating running back into bad situation. But we need to have the resilience to get back in the race and find a new, healthy church, trusting in it and its leaders.

What do we lose when we don’t trust in religious institutions? The most important thing we lose is the Church itself, which is an institution. It spans denominations and traditions and buildings and space and time, but it is united as one community of believers with Christ as its head. We embody that institution in various ways across the world and in our neighborhoods, but always in community. The alternative is practicing Christianity in isolation, which the writer of Hebrews specifically warns against (Hebrews 10:25). Through the institution of the Church we receive the sacraments together. The bread and the wine and the Word and baptism. We share in the Lord’s Table, in the hearing and preaching of God’s Word, and in the sacrament of baptism. These are critical parts of the institution of the Church.

We were created for community, and religious institutions provide that community in ways that a “spiritual but not religious” community struggle to. While it’s easy to find an online tarot card group or perhaps even a local wiccan coven (?), institutional commitments like membership vows in a church and regular meals together can create a deeper bond because they demand more of people.

There’s also a shared embodiment and commitment to ethical norms that comes from being in community in a Christian religious institution that helps ground us. This is particularly important in a society suffering from anomie. The institution helps us deal with age-old moral questions like sex and marriage, and evolving questions like the use of AI and IVF.

The institution of the Church allows us to practice church discipline according to Matthew 18:15-20. This may sound like a downside to the institution, but it’s not. When practiced rightly, church discipline allows elders to protect vulnerable people and condemn what is evil. And ideally, it brings reconciliation and repentance.

Institutions help us organize to resist evils in society as a block, whether through voting (in the case of abortion) or collective action (in the case of pornography and abortion). That’s not to say that the church ought to be used for such purposes, but religious institutions like the AND Campaign and the ERLC and various publications that advocate for life are leading the way in organizing Christians.

The church as an institution has historically been one of the best places to turn to in times of trouble. Most healthy churches regularly pay the electric bills and other needs of those in and outside their congregation. This safety net saves people in need from having to turn to predatory payday lenders. Could some churches do a better job of serving their community through a diaconate fund? Sure, but they can’t do better if there is no trust in the fund in the first place.

Are there risks to trusting and committing to a church body? Yes. Just as there are risks in committing to anything. If you don’t want to risk being vulnerable, you’ll be very lonely. The challenge is to be prudent and prayerful about the church you commit yourself to. And if you are betrayed by a wolf, God remains faithful and his Church remains faithful. We knew wolves were coming. We should not be surprised. We should simply return to our faithfulness and trust in the institutions God has put before us, committing ourselves to working for their good because it is for God’s glory. Our trust is ultimately in God and his providence. He’s going to have to be the one who saves his Church. We can’t do it. People in the church will hurt you, one day or another, but it’s still an institution worth believing in.

1. This is a much broader problem with the information age. You see the exact same dynamic at work with school teachers who sleep with their students or violent crimes by immigrants. Any time a type of crime gets widely shared, it gives the impression that it’s more common than it actually is.