Guest Editorial: Rebuilding trust

There was a time when attending a Southern Baptist-affiliated church was like going to McDonald’s. It didn’t matter where you were, the Sunday school quarterly was the same, and we all sang out of the Baptist Hymnal.

We were what missiologists called a “homogeneous unit.”

Depending on your perspective, that might have been a good thing. On the other hand, those glory days in Baptist life were destined to change as society and generations changed.

Multiple factors contributed to the splintering of the homogeneous unit, chief among them being the need for churches and conventions to adapt to the times.

The impact is seen not only in worship styles, but also on the local church’s approach to missions. I grew up in a church that contributed 25 percent of all undesignated receipts to cooperative missions but never actually did hands-on missions. We paid the professionals to do it.

Today, local churches are scattering all over Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth doing hands-on mission work. Again, depending on your perspective, that’s a good thing.

Times, they have changed.

Erosion of trust

And while changing times and culture wars are no doubt root causes of the declining homogeneity across Baptist life, there has been another factor less noticeable but nonetheless present.

Organized Baptist structures have faced an erosion of trust for 40 years that is probably better described as a landslide. It turns out that what is happening in Baptist life is not isolated.

Every year, Edelman, a global communications firm, tracks what it calls its “trust barometer.” This year’s 78-page report surveyed 33,000 people in 28 countries, tracking trust in business, CEOs, nonprofits and a host of issues.

The title of the 2025 report is revealing: “Trust and the Crisis of Grievance.” According to the survey, “a generation of institutional failures erupts into grievance.”

This is the 25th year Edelman has done its survey, and this year it “revealed a profound shift to acceptance of aggressive actions, with political polarization and deepening fears giving rise to a widespread sense of grievance.”

In other words, distrust is turning to anger, described by Richard Edelman, CEO, as a “descent into grievance. It’s been a progression from fear to polarization into grievance.”

No doubt the explosion of new media platforms gives this anger and grievance an outlet and the two feed each other. People jump on Facebook, Instagram, or any number of outlets to voice their displeasure.

Raise your hand if you’ve seen growing anger out there, whether it’s people we share the freeways with or customers yelling at a store employee. Behavior once thought of as completely out of bounds has become normalized.

In the brief time I’ve filled in for Editor Eric Black at the Baptist Standard, I’ve seen times when distrust turns into grievance among Texas Baptists.

Can trust be restored in a new Baptist world where we’re not all alike?

We’re different

Back in the day when Baptists were a homogeneous unit, it was easier to trust our institutions because we lived with the idea that we were all alike. If it came from Nashville or Dallas, it must be trustworthy.

But then one day we discovered we’re different. We have different definitions of everything from the authority of Scripture to who can be ordained. We define and label each other based on styles of worship and which Baptist Faith and Message we follow.

One of the first casualties of discovering our differences was trust. If someone is not like me, I can’t trust that person. Before long, that distrust turned to grievance and the “acceptance of aggressive actions with political polarization.”

Sound familiar?

Working together

I’ve spent my career watching the seismic shifts in Baptist life brought on by the decades-old controversy over biblical authority, which is better described as a political fight for control.

I’m part of a generation that lamented what we lost. But I’ve moved on and today, instead of lamenting what was lost, I’m optimistic about what we gained.

Local churches have realized the Great Commission actually applies to them and not just some denominational institution. Cooperative missions no longer means just sending money, but working in tandem with conventions, institutions and with other local churches.

While some people see the shift from a denominational focus to more of a local church focus as part of our post-denominational world, I see the opposite. I see this as a tremendous opportunity for denominational structures and institutions to partner with local churches instead of doing the work for them.

Therein lies the key to trusting each other—working together.

A healing force

There is good news. In a video interview introducing the trust report, Edelman describes NGOs (nongovernmental organizations), or nonprofits as “the healing force for the social fabric.”

And there you have the Great Commandment. Loving God and loving our neighbor is the key for followers of Jesus being that healing force.

Edelman says, “If we can get to the place where there is optimism, it can overwhelm grievance and then we can have the clear path to a belief in the future” and trust is restored.

That’s a big if. If optimism leads to the restoration of trust, then how can we be optimistic? We know the answer. More than simple optimism, we have the good news, the power to transform lives and overwhelm mistrust and grievance.

I’ve seen memes on social media where people conjecture about what kind of letter the Apostle Paul would write to the American church today. He did. We call it 1 Corinthians.

“For even as the body is one and yet has many members and all the members of the body, though they are one body, so also is Christ…for the body is not one member, but many” (1 Corinthians 12:12, 14).

Our challenge as Baptists today is to “throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus” (Hebrews 12:1b-2a).

Scott Collins serves as interim editor of the Baptist Standard. The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily express the views of the Baptist Standard.