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Hurricane Katrina opens this chapter as an example of how trust breaks down when there is income inequality. The authors cite the coverage of New Orleans (a city they note has a great disparity of income) following the disaster “Television news screens showed desperate residents begging for help, for baby food, for medicine, and then switched to images of troops cruising the flooded streets in boats – no evacuting people, not bringing them supplies, but, fully armed with automatic weapons, looking for looters.” (49-50) Similarly they cite the Chicago heat wave of 1995. In areas where there was little trust, “…poor African Americans, living in areas with low levels of trust and high levels of crime, were too frightened to open their windows or doors, or leave their homes to go to local cooling centres established by city authorities. Neighbours did not check on neighbours and hundreds of elderly and vulnerable people died. In equally poor Hispanic neighbourhoods, characterized by high levels of trust and active community life, the risk of death was much lower.”(57)
According to to the General Social Survey a monitor for social change in the last quarter century, there is disparity between the states. Among North Dakotans, 67 feel like they can trust others. 17% of Mississippians believe others can be trusted. International and domestic data is congruent, low levels of trust and high income inequality are related. The United States of America ranks in the top three countries for high income inequality. Our company is Singapore and Portugal.
Where there is great income disparity, the status of women is lower and (before rising fuel prices) there was also a rise in the sale of SUV as if to offer some protection as one road down the street. The authors declare trust to be an important “marker” that equality can contribute to a more cohesive society.
Congregational change and development can learn from the development of nations and states. Trust hangs in the balance as pastoral leaders do their part to develop the program/ministry and relational infrastructure of the congregation. Too often trust is eroded because church redevelopment efforts are not as intentional about relationships as they are about programmatic initiatives. When church members are stratified and there is a unequal value put on their opinions, feedback and overall worth, the congregation itself begins to be an unequal environment. Even as pastors must understand and respect people contextually,we must avoid any temtpation to stratify membership. As one body of Christ, the whole messages through its individual members. Our inclination to listen to those members who praise us and ignore those who criticize us may run contrary to the Spirit who invites us all forward. The healthy congregational leader willdo well to receive all congregational messages without prejudice so that they might settle in like puzzle pieces into the heart and mind of the leader who is the holding environment (Ronald Heifitz) for the effects of congregational change. Pastoral leaders may be primary guardians of equality within their congregation. The difference it will make will be the extent to which the congregation can rely upon and collaborate with one another in order to exercise the gospel in the world.
*The authors quote Alexis de Tocqueville “Prejudice is an imaginary inequality which is follows the real inequality produced by wealth and law” (pg. 400 of Democracy In America)
Leslie's Theology 