“Trust is now the deciding factor in whether a society can function.” – Richard Edelman
Communities thrive when the sense of trust and belonging is high. Communities fray and deteriorate when the sense of distrust and alienation is high. I’m sorry to say what you already know: our communities and society at large is plagued by distrust and alienation. People do not trust the very powers of influence and impact that determine many aspects of their lives. This includes the government, the media, the scientific and medical establishment, the church, big business, academia, etc. People feel increasingly distant, disengaged, and disenchanted from the very entities that our current society was built upon. How can this spell anything but the end of the world as we know it?
I will save a deeper dive into this angle of social diagnosis for another post. The solution concerns me. People need to trust and belong to something. And that something should not be violent, hateful, or divisive. What I want to ask now is “where can trust and belonging be restored in a way that makes things better?”. We can count on the fact that people will trust something and they will seek belonging somewhere. We simply cannot live full and meaningful lives, connect to our longing for purpose, or feel secure and safe without trust and belonging. They are literally as important to our social species as food and water.
So If it’s true that we are abandoning things we once trusted in, and if it’s true that as human beings we must find things to trust in and belong with to thrive, then we are in a moment of incredible opportunity. Some politicians have seized on this opportunity. Businesses and advertising are scrambling to keep up with the sentiment. People across the political and theological spectrum are looking, consciously and unconsciously, for trust and belonging. Where will they find it?
Some of the good news is that for many, trust and belonging has remained at the personal and hyper-local levels. People tend to trust their families and even many of the people they work with and live near. Basically, when people can interact on a human level with other humans, they find trust and belonging a bit easier. The bad news is that even local trust has eroded greatly for significant parts of our population. Especially the marginalized and forgotten. The social fabric of extended family support, neighborly involvement, and “it takes a village” practice is worn thin and tattered. People are as isolated, alienated, and distrustful as they’ve ever been.
I’ll be honest. I don’t have much interest or energy in trying to restore collective trust in our existing institutions including the one I’m most deeply a part of (the church, if you were wondering). I’m troubled by the buckling of social mores and the great upheaval we are in the midst of. I can feel the tension, the anxiety, the anger and the fever pitch. But I’m accepting it as a difficult but inevitable reckoning that happens with all our attempts to organize ourselves. Eras and civilizations change, and we are in the midst of a significant shift. I’m not here to resist or counter it. There is no going back to the way things were. I want to help channel the tidal wave of change. I want to help pilot the rebuilding process for what our descendants will inherit.
I’m very interested and invested in helping re-plant people’s trust and belonging in the relationships and networks they find in their local communities. I’m passionate about calling the church to commit to the same. Let’s start at the most basic level. A guiding question for me each day is “how can we re-build a sense of community and belonging at the micro-level in our neighborhoods, churches, schools, and networks?”. I’m learning it starts small and incrementally. I’m learning trust and belonging cannot be managed or nurtured by talking heads, podcasts, or politicians. We are being invited to transformation even as we are experiencing deterioration. And the God of resurrection and new life is here to lead us.