How much do you trust your church?

In the past it was natural and spontaneous for people to trust institutions more than themselves - including churches, and especially churches. 

People trusted their church more than any other authority - to the point of leaving home, moving house, losing livelihood - and even unto death. 

Nowadays this does not happen. People do not trust their churches any more than they structure other specific social institutions; and indeed people trust their churches less than they trust the consensus of high status secular institutions (when, which happens rarely, their church opposes the dominant ideology in some particular respect). 

Nowadays, traditionalist Christians (leaders and laity) are put into the position of arguing that people ought to trust their church more than themselves -- but in the past this did not seriously need to be argued. 

And nowadays? - well, it is easy for someone (whether a church leader, or devout lay member) to say that they trust their church above all other authority...

Yet in practice churches are never clear and unanimous when it comes to any serious matter; so the individual must (at least) discern within his trusted church...

Which means, in effect, choos-ing to trust... that-which he has chos-en to trust. 

At the same time most people are afraid to trust themselves when it comes to serious matters; or, at least, they are afraid to acknowledge that they are relying on their own best judgment. 

The disadvantage is that this means nearly everybody including devout Christians) is spiritually adrift and impotent...

But on the "positive" side, they never need to take responsibility for difficult decisions!

Since they can always (dishonestly) claim (even to themselves) that they are operating on the basis of trusting in the wisdom of a higher authority.