Society’s declining trust:

The headlines are alarming: “America’s clergy have lost the confidence of millions, according to two recent surveys, and experts say pastors will have to confront some harsh truths to regain that trust.”¹ According to Barna Group, nearly a quarter of Americans, 24 percent, say they are “unsure” about the trustworthiness of pastors, with one in five Christians (21 percent) doubting the clergy. And only 21 percent of pastors say their neighbors “very much” see them in a trustworthy light.²

Surveys suggest that 75 percent of the public in the United States believe that trust in government is declining, and 64 percent feel that their trust in fellow human beings is also eroding.³ This likely has many causes. Widespread availability and use of the Internet and social media have increased transparency by making reporting of scandals and crimes easier. Political polarization has increased.⁴ To sidestep traditional political processes and obstruct legislative or executive action by the federal government, states have increasingly introduced lawsuits against the national government.⁵ When asked whether the lack of trust in each other is making it more difficult to solve societal problems, 70 percent answered yes.⁶

Drivers

The forces driving society’s growing distrust vary. Every month 3.4 billion robocalls bombard the public.⁷ Data mining continues to be a massive and growing privacy concern. Identity theft affects millions of people. Trolls and bots have infiltrated social media to spread fake news, misinformation, and other low-credibility content.⁸ And although it generally is seen as a positive in certain aspects of societal health, increasing diversity tends to lower the overall level of trust in society as well.⁹ The Institute for the Future (IFTF) lists trust as one of the key issues facing society in the next decade.¹⁰ As the architects behind marketing combine intensified microtargeting with advances in psychology and behavioral economics, businesses and governments will increasingly be capable of influencing people’s emotions, perceptions, and decisions.¹¹ Yet it will come at the price of increasing information fatigue, information overload and confusion, and ultimately greater distrust well into the next decade.¹²

Implications

Trust is critical to society’s survival. Investors need to trust before they invest in businesses. Patients need to trust in their hospitals. Citizens must have confidence in each other in order to adequately participate in civil society, the only way to create credibility for its various institutions.

Trust is a fundamental prerequisite for cooperation among people and the precursor to social capital. Long ago, Alexis de Tocqueville predicted in his social observations that a nation can only be great if it maintains a reciprocal association of trust with its citizens.¹³ Without trust, the cooperation and coordination necessary to keep social institutions healthy and useful quickly erodes.

So what might the future look like if trust continues to vanish from society? Some argue that once it is gone, it cannot be restored.¹⁴ What might this mean for Christian ministry?

Thankfully, despite the poor levels of trust in institutions throughout most of civil society lately, religion has remained relatively unscathed.¹⁵ Whether that continues so in the next decade or not, Christian ministers will still benefit from envisioning what possible futures of society look like, given the current decline in trust.

As the concept of trust declines and appears likely to continue to do so for the foreseeable future, it will have profound effects throughout society. How will a future of continued erosion of trust affect social dynamics, and what might it mean for Christian ministry leaders? Social change theories—conflict theory and developmental theory—offer a number of projections for the future of trust and its implications to our society. They are means by which church leaders can get a glimpse of how to prepare their ministries and strategically lead their organizations for what may lie ahead.

Conflict theory today

Conflict theory focuses on discord or struggle as the primary source of social change, either for better or worse, and suggests the trust issue will worsen during the next decade. Conflict is what motivates people to innovate in order to gain an edge for their particular faction, and the threat of outside groups gaining an edge over any other group creates an “us versus them” mentality that drives the members within each group to draw closer to those who share their own values and goals.¹⁶

Conflict theory unfolds in a predictable pattern. It assumes that (1) society consists of many different groups; (2) social groups each experience social change unequally; (3) as groups find themselves in conflict with one another, it causes intragroup solidarity; and (4) the competition that conflict sparks is what fuels social change.¹⁷ As conditions in society are favorable for some groups and not others, the various groups develop different desires. Those elements having authority seek to stabilize society, while groups with less or no authority or power will work to shake up the status quo.¹⁸ Since their desires and pursuits are incompatible, it produces conflict.

Each group then competes, strives after new approaches, seeks to alter the legal landscape, or attempts to spark social movements by bargaining, coercing, or persuading others. Such actions inevitably lead to change, resulting in either constructive or destructive outcomes, which reshape the conditions in society and reset the cycle of intergroup conflict.

One of the greatest drivers of distrust and lack of cooperation is the growing diversity of interest groups and cultural pluralism that vie for power and influence. Within each group, individuals may trust each other, but among the growing number of competing groups and values, intergroup dynamics of trust decrease proportionately. Through the lens of conflict theory, we see that the process is inherently destructive.

Conflict theory tomorrow

As mentioned earlier, conflict theory projects a further declined level of trust in society. As social media, internet social networking, and general ease of interconnectedness because of technology increases, these factors will combine with growing diversity and pluralism to create even greater numbers of competing interest groups. As their number increases relative to the population, individuals will have fewer people to trust. The greater number of competing groups will result in more and more conflict situations, and the rate and frequency of social change may swell. As the theory suggests, social changes affect specific coalitions in unequal ways. So as each change affects each interest group, power and influence balances will shift more rapidly and fuel even greater intergroup distrust.

Development theory today

Development theory views society as having a long, unfolding direction to it, whether for better or worse. The concept also maintains that, as society evolves over time, it grows increasingly complex.¹⁹ Just as living organisms follow a certain path from birth to growth to maturity to eventual decline, so do human societies. Regardless of whatever drives social change, development theory regards society as moving through a series of noticeable stages.

During the past 200 years, people have gone from horse and carriage transportation to flying; from subsistence farming to highly specialized labor and supermarkets; and from pen and ink mail to Morse Code telegramming to the Internet and satellite communications. Clearly the division of labor and number of specialized occupations has increased dramatically. Evidence of this directionality of development also exists in the numbers of non-Western countries growing more educated, industrial, and richer once globalization began.²⁰ However, development theory does not place a value on change.²¹ Therefore, society could very well be careening toward an undesirable end.

Development theory also helps understand our current state of affairs. Any casual observer can see its merits, as technology, institutions, and overall social structure and sophistication have gradually advanced during time. Yet this theory also reflects the current situation because of its distinctive assumption that not all progress is good for society. As societies pass through the stages of this theory, from primitive to the advanced status of industrial, postindustrial, and now the information age, they grow far more complex and diverse. Many of the transformations we have seen, such as modernization, urbanization, bureaucratization, and technological development, reflect the theory. Most important, development theory fits with the biblical concept of the eventual decline of society toward the end of time described in Matthew 24 and 2 Timothy 3:1–5.

Developmental theory tomorrow

Using this lens to forecast a potential future, we can know that society will certainly become even more complex as time moves relentlessly forward. As far as technology goes, advertisers have only begun to scratch the surface of microtargeting based on human characteristics. Advancement in psychology and behavioral sciences will contribute to significantly more sophisticated algorithms that will soon be capable of targeting even the deepest-held values.²²

Once businesses, political campaigns, governments, and online criminals deploy such technology, people will have still more reason to distrust what they see and hear. And as misinformation continues to fly around in cyberspace, society will become more data weary and unsure of what to put its confidence in.²³ Aside from technology, the most advanced societies may be approaching a “post-truth” era, wherein love grows cold (Matt. 24: 12) and dysfunctional relationships exacerbate lack of trust (Matt. 24:10; 2 Tim. 3:1–5).

Recommendations

Christian ministry can and should be the leader in the next decade for providing improved trust. It might help that religious institutions have so far not been quite as affected by distrust as other sectors of society. Religion holds a unique ability to grow social capital and produce healthier societies.²⁴ Consider the following recommendations as you seek to change society by fostering trust in your own ministry and thus taking advantage of the declining confidence in most other institutions that we will see in the coming decade.

Be reliable—Stay consistent in your messaging so that your current and potential followers will know that they can count on you.²⁵

Be competent—In your understanding of Scripture, your knowledge of and preparation for theological challenges to contemporary Christianity in current affairs (1 Pet. 3:15), and in the operation and management of your organization (Matt. 24:14–29), maintain and expect the competency of yourself and your fellow believers.²⁶

Be authentic—Ensure ultimate integrity between what you say you are and what you do (Titus 7:7–9).²⁷

Be vulnerable, transparent, and accountable—Admit mistakes when they happen. Do not try to hide them–they will be discovered anyway, which will greatly damage trust in you. Show followers that you have confidence in them by sharing and communicating important information.

Raise up leaders for tomorrow—Be proactive in identifying and training leaders who will work for the greater good of society—not for themselves.

Engage your members—Offer opportunities for others to be active in solving community problems.

Leading positive change

While additional social change theories might offer different views of the future in which the distrust trend is reversed, these theories show trust declining during the next decade. Deep down, people want to be able to trust others. It gives us what we need to cooperate and live within healthy communities. By following these simple yet challenging recommendations, Christian ministry organizations can lead positive change—both for society and for God’s kingdom.