Americans’ Confidence in Pastors, and Other Professions, Keeps Falling, Poll Finds

Audio By Carbonatix

Americans’ trust in the honesty and ethical standards of pastors continues to decline, but it remains far higher than that of professions at the bottom of the list, including Congress and telemarketers.

That’s according to a new Gallup survey, which found that a record-low 27 percent of U.S. adults rate the honesty and ethics of clergy as high or very high, while 48 percent rate them as average and 18 percent as low or very low.

The nation’s trust in pastors has fallen sharply over the past decade. In 2015, 45 percent of Americans rated the honesty and ethics of clergy as high or very high. That figure dropped to 37 percent in 2018 and 32 percent in 2023.

Nurses are the most trusted profession, with 75 percent of Americans ranking them high or very high, followed by military veterans (67 percent), medical doctors (57 percent), and pharmacists (53 percent). High school teachers, at 50 percent, are the only other profession to clear that threshold.

Clergy rank ninth out of 21 professions in trust.

“Nurses have outpaced all other professions since being added to the list in 1999, with the exception of one year, 2001, after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, when firefighters made their lone appearance,” Gallup’s Megan Brenan wrote in an online analysis.

Prior to 1999, Gallup said, pharmacists and clergy members often were the highest-rated professions. That began to change in the early 2000s, when widespread revelations of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church eroded public trust.

But clergy are not alone in seeing public confidence decline. Pharmacists, high school teachers, and police officers also fell to record lows in public trust in the latest Gallup survey. In fact, Gallup’s long-term tracking shows the average positive rating across 11 core professions has dropped to 29 percent, its lowest ever, after staying near 40 percent in the early 2000s and around 35 percent through most of the 2010s.

Members of Congress (7 percent) and telemarketers (5 percent) ranked at the bottom of the list.

The survey was conducted in December.

Related Article

Bethel Leaders Admit Failures in Response to Allegations against Shawn Bolz

Photo Credit: ©Getty Images/SeventyFour

Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel. 

Listen to Michael's Podcast! He is the host of Crosswalk Talk, a podcast where he talks with Christian movie stars, musicians, directors, and more. Hear how famous Christian figures keep their faith a priority in Hollywood and discover the best Christian movies, books, television, and other entertainment. You can find Crosswalk Talk on LifeAudio.com, or subscribe on Apple or Spotify so you never miss an interview that will be sure to encourage your faith.