John McCarthy (University of Chicago Divinity School PhD 1986) joins us this year as a Senior Fellow in the Marty Center. Currently a professor at Loyola University of Chicago, Department of Theology, Prof. McCarthy's project is entitled "Public Trust and the Intersection of Science and Theology: Creating a Public Theology."

Abstract: This research and publication project assumes that a meaningful, analytic distinction exists between the categories, “public trust” and “private trust”, while recognizing that actual social practice might not obey analytic rules. A “private trust” relationship, say, between marriage partners or friends, is comprised of several “dimensions”. It involves face-to face encounters; a process for earning the expectation of reliability; personal reasons for wanting to enter into a trusting relationship; mutual interchange about the areas where trust needs to exist; a sense of the limits of trust that define betrayal; and the expected results of what comes from a trusting relationship. Trust is best understood by understanding these dimensions of a trusting relationship. These same dimensions of trust are likely to be present in instances of “public trust”, although the configuration of these elements will be noticeably different. Public trust is mediated by more formal, social institutions; by defined paths that establish training in, and reasons for, mutual trust; by public sanctions for the betrayal of trust, by clear statements of what the results of the public trust should be. When this form of trust, public trust, breaks down, it involves not only the disappointment, outrage, and heartbreak; it involves the breakdown of institutionalized social relations, the inability to create common goals, and the suspicion of concepts and ideas outside of a member community. In our current context we have become accustomed to thinking of fractured public trust trough political paralysis, and racial and religious bigotry.