Trust is everywhere. It underpins our institutions, our health, and our relationships. However, experts are worried that the world is facing a trust crisis. If so much of our lives depend on trust, what could happen if trust starts to break?

Meet our guest

Links

Special thanks to our season sponsor Zondervan Academic. Get discounts on MasterLectures video courses and exclusive samples of their books at zondervanacademic.com/undeceptions

You can find a copy of Tom’s book on trust here

A transcript of this episode is available here. Please note, that due to software not all exchanges between guests will be completely accurate.

Extras

Check out the helpful links below for more information on what was discussed in this episode.

To Read

• The decline of trust in the global west has been tracked by experts, many of whom are growing increasingly concerned. Here’s an article from The Atlantic that looks into it
• Curious as to how trusting your country is? Check out the Edelman Trust Index to see where your homeland places!
• An important part of this episode was the distinction between trust and reliance. Here you can access a paper Tom mentioned, by contemporary philosopher Annette Baier, that goes into this distinction
• We mentioned C.S. Lewis’ wonderful essay ‘On Obstinacy in Belief’ in this episode, which features a beautiful reflection on the nature of trust. Here’s the full essay
• The link between trust and health was one of the most fascinating findings while preparing this episode – check out the paper we referenced on it here
• Here’s the article posted by The Conversation that tracks the correlation between trust and general happiness

To Watch

• American’s trust in institutions like the media is falling. Here’s the Pew Research Centre clip we played off the top of the show, tracking this
• The collapse of the crypto exchange platform FTX was an example of how putting trust in the wrong things can have disastrous consequences. Here’s an explainer of the entire affair
• The film Spotlight is both harrowing – and brilliant. Here’s the scene that you heard in the episode (language warning)

To Listen

• As an in-demand expert on trust, Tom’s done the rounds on some other podcasts! Here he is on former Australian Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson’s show Conversations
• … and here he is giving the annual Sir John Graham Lecture (in New Zealand), on the decline of trust
• As usual, we’ve also touched on this topic of Undeceptions before. Check out our episode on Kierkegaard – Blind Faith – for some more discussion on how people can come to trust
• For many Christian listeners, coming to trust more deeply might involve a season of deconstructing. Here’s an episode we did on just that topic

… and finally

• This scene from the wonderful Behind the Curve documentary is a great experiment for proving the curvature of the earth (even if the person experimenting refused to believe the results!)