Trust in Clergy At All Time Low
Gallup has just published its annual survey on how Americans view various professions, and the results are not pretty for clergy: Americans rating of the honesty and ethical standards of clergy is at an all time low. Kate Tracy at Christianity Today offers some thoughts: In fact, recorded public trust in clergy has now reached an all-time low , with only 47 percent of Americans rating clergy highly on honesty and ethics (compared to 82 percent saying the same about nurses). The previous low since Gallup began asking the question in 1977: 50 percent in 2009. However, clergy still ranked No. 7 out of the 22 professions studied. And confidence in the overall church as an institution improved over the past year. . . . Americans are divided along party lines, as well as age. Gallup found more trust in clergy among Republicans (63%) than Democrats (40%). Similarly, clergy members appear more trustworthy to older Americans than millennials: half ...