Trust & Skepticism
I have been really looking forward to moving here to Knoxville and starting work with your congregation. While moving can be exhausting, there’s something satisfying to me about all the planning and preparing. For instance, looking for a place to rent in the area was tricky! Both y’all and the other folks I know down here warned me the rent is spiking. So I was really excited when I found a recently renovated little place in Knoxville for just $700 a month. I found it posted on craigslist and reached out to the owner. She responded right away and we got talking details. Is there A/C? Yes. Do you accept cats? Yes. Are utilities included? Yes!
Wow, what luck! Of course, she wasn’t available to show us the place, but we were in Minneapolis anyway. She wasn’t able to talk on the phone when I asked, because she was at work. And sure, her emails were worded kind of weird. When I asked her to verify her identity, she said, and I quote “But if you are having hard time to trust. Please you can look for another house not to waste each other time.” Ok, kind of red flags… But maybe English isn’t her first language! Then, when I looked up the address elsewhere, it was listed for sale, not rent. With all the same photos she had posted. And when I called the listed realtor, he said, no, that place is not for rent.
Oh no. It was a scam.
A like-new home with everything included, for only $700 a month. Too good to be true! I am embarrassed to tell you that I went so far as to fill out a rental application form. I didn’t share any sensitive information, but still! I was this close to sending this scammer a deposit! I felt really silly. I felt sad that the place I’d already started filling with my imaginary furniture wasn’t to be. I felt disappointed that someone tried to trick me, and sad that someone needed money badly enough to take advantage of other people.
It’s risky out there on the internet. I’m sure most of you have come into contact with scams in some way, shape, or form. There’s actually a common email scam that happens to ministers and congregations pretty frequently. The scammer impersonates the minister and asks their congregants for money in weird ways. The first time it happened to me, I was on my way to General Assembly, our annual UU conference. I got an email from Rev. Meg Riley, who was the minister of the Church of the Larger Fellowship at the time and is currently our co-moderator. She asked if I could buy some gift cards online and send them to her to help a congregant. She was sick, she added, or she would do it herself. Since I knew for a fact that Meg was on her way to GA and since the sender’s email address was asgfdgasda@yandex.com, it was pretty easy to figure that one out. But it’s really common, so it must work occasionally!
The internet can be nerve-wracking, but the solution is skill- and trust-building, not fear and avoidance. It’s not unlike community in real life. Know your trusted contacts, for one. If I ask you for money, as ministers must occasionally do, it should be both requested and received through normal channels. You should only ever hear from me from my organization-specific email address or my work phone number, which is listed on our website. And you should never send “me” gift cards or venmo or anything like that. Same goes for unusual emails or texts from people impersonating co-workers or family members. You wouldn’t just hand your credit card to a stranger, right?
Other online occurrences also mirror real life community. Passwords are like locks and keys on our doors; keeping boundaries on our personal spaces. Online misinformation is like a digital form of rumors, so it’s important to verify what you’ve heard directly and not spread unchecked information. In any community, including church, if you ever hear something upsetting or surprising, it’s a good idea to check the official sources or ask questions of people who are in the know on that topic, before reacting or spreading hearsay. Both in-person and online, we must build bonds of trust, so that we know what is legitimate and don’t fall for tricks.
Trust and skepticism are both important skills. In fact I would say they are two of the foundational spiritual tenets of Unitarian Universalism. The Unitarians were skeptical Christians, who questioned the Bible and the doctrine of the Trinity until they questioned their way right out of Christianity. And trust in a loving God and a non-malevolent universe was what set the Universalists apart. So trust and skepticism are really crucial skills in human life.
And it’s possible to take both too far. It’s possible to be too trusting. To believe the scammer offering you the perfect rental for an unbelievably low price. To respond to an email from someone in authority asking you to send money for someone in need. To click the link that says you won a prize you didn’t play for. To hear a piece of information that makes sense to the way you see the world, and unquestioningly pass it on without checking its truthfulness. Too much unearned trust becomes gullibility.
It’s also possible to have too much skepticism. Especially when we get scammed or tricked or mistreated, it becomes easy to mistrust everyone and everything. Potential romantic partners, when we’ve only ever had our hearts broken. Elected officials, when representatives and even presidents turn out to be profiteering liars. News sources, which will say anything to manipulate and fire up their audience. People even mistrust science, which is how we get anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, which have then led to the resurgence of diseases like measles and polio! If we believe we can trust nothing, the world feels like a dangerous place indeed.
So the task is to find a balance. To use skepticism as a tool, not a weapon. To build communities of trust. We do this by taking faithful risks, a little at a time. With news sources, we can check where they get their information and if they are committed to journalistic ethics. With politicians, we can see if they follow through on their promises and refuse to re-elect them if they don’t. With our spirituality, we can try different spiritual practices and keep them when they help us live peaceful and justice-seeking lives. We can step into new communities, investing our trust when it is earned by forthright and honest patterns of behavior by everyone involved.
We must also be trustworthy ourselves, to the best of our abilities. We practice to become people whose values, words, and deeds are aligned as much as possible. We follow through on our promises, and when we can’t, because we are each imperfect, we recognize our mistakes and ask for forgiveness. We offer each other understanding and mercy, while also insisting that harm not be caused again.
So while the internet can feel like a jungle of confusion and our society is clanging full of distrustful noise, we can do our best to use the tool of skepticism to build communities of trust. We can treasure the communities and relationships where our trust is placed, tending them and being worthy of their trust in return. While that one craigslist ad turned out to be a scam, I value the apartment in Massachusetts I also found on that platform, with a kind landlady who helped me through the pandemic with rent reductions and ride-sharing. Trust and mistrust can both be found, online and in community, but with a little skepticism, we can find the gems worth finding.
