Last week Pew Research Center released a new study that looks at the how extensively Americans trust people who hold various positions of authority (find it here). The specific positions they considered were: K-12 public school principals, police officers, military leaders, religious leaders, local elected officials, members of Congress, journalists, and leaders of technology companies.

In order to determine the extent of trust Americans have in people who hold these different positions, Pew asked four nearly identical questions related to each position. To quote the report, “The questions focus on how often those who have positions of power and responsibility in these groups care about the people “like you” or those they serve, whether they handle the resources available to them in a responsible way, the degree to which they provide fair and accurate information to the public, and whether they admit their mistakes and take responsibility for them.”

The report also broke out the responses by the age, religion, political orientation, and education of the respondents.

What is likely not surprising about the report is that many Americans have serious reservations about the trustworthiness of Congress and other elected officials as well as tech company leaders. What may come as a surprise is the ambivalence trending to mistrust of religious leaders, with Americans often showing greater support for police and military leaders than for religious leaders. The break down can be seen in the table below:

Particularly in an age when the Evangelical Protestants in the United States are trying to ratchet up their public proclamation of the gospel and the Mainline Protestants are seeking to be a “prophetic voice” that cries out against injustice, these statistics are startling. They suggest that most Americans are not inclined to trust the messages coming out of the church.

This is not to say that the church, in whatever stripe it claims, is useless. Rather, it is to say that the church and other religious groups are only meaningful for those who are already in them. A later graph makes this clear, showing that most people think that religious leaders are doing a good job of caring for those who are already under their care.

The message of Americans to the church and other religious bodies seems to be, “It’s fine for you to take care of those who find you meaningful. However, we have no real interest in what you have to say in the public square. In fact, we’re fairly certain that we couldn’t trust much of what you had to say even if you did say something.”

This message is even starker when controlled for political affiliation. Those who identify with the Democratic Party, which means that they lean to the left politically in Pew’s estimation, are far less trusting of what religious leaders have to offer.

This statistic should be a matter of significant concern, especially for leaders in Mainline Protestantism who are banking on capturing the cultural zeitgeist of the late 2010s by throwing their support behind more liberal and progressive causes. Some of the very groups that they have targeted, including the police and military, retain a higher trust level amongst the American populace than religious bodies do.

Moreover, it seems that Mainline Protestants as a whole are a bit less optimistic about their own trustworthiness than their Evangelical peers:

This chart has a great deal to break down in it, but for the sake of this article, the chief items have to deal with the consistently lower scores the Mainline Protestants give religious leaders compared to Evangelical Protestants. It is difficult to be a credible witness to those in the public square when those inside the organization are uncertain about their leaders’ own credibility.

This is not to suggest that Mainline Protestants need to abandon their calls for justice. To be a witness for Jesus Christ in the public square is not always to be popular. It also is to publicly care for the “least of these.” The racial breakdown on who most trusts police makes it clear that overall trust level belies a serious difference for how different groups of Americans experience the police as leaders.

The church should address this. However, the overall thinking of the American people related to religious leaders suggests that the church needs to be wise in its strategy. When those who are relatively less trusted mount a public attack on those who are relatively more trusted, it is not likely to win public support or political action. This is especially true if those within the church are split on whether to trust their leaders’ own actions.

There were different approaches that the biblical prophets used to share their message in the public square. Some, like Ezekiel, used over-the-top object lessons to garner attention, some, like Amos, burst on the scene and declared a wildly unpopular message in a politically fraught place, and some, like Isaiah, advised the king as part of the royal court. Each found a way to speak God’s word in a way that conveyed it with power and called its listeners to take notice.

Given the context the church finds itself in today vis-à-vis the trust of the American people, it must consider how it can speak prophetically such that people can recognize the authenticity and trustworthiness of its voice. Then, like those who heard the prophets, it will be up to them to decide how they will respond. At least, though, they will not be able to dismiss the message because they think it comes from a basically untrustworthy messenger.