I went to a highly ranked university. Many of my professors played key roles in their fields and wrote the textbooks used by multiple colleges. Academics is a proxy for merit and ideas supported via scientific method. Hypothesize -> experiment -> measure -> conclude is an intellectually satisfying cycle that lends to the idea of convincing yourself if you don't believe. It's clear there are academic bad actors just as there are bad actors in any system of authority, but I think the incentives are much less perverse. Academia has a significant focus on peer review. Academia is a hierarchy itself, so when someone says "I trust academia," they are not referring to "just any professor in the field" but the methods that lead to information used in textbooks written by various experts in various fields used in top universities.

Tithing alone creates a situation where any pastor is extremely aligned with doing anything at all to prevent questioning of god, including using social pressure. Social leverage (we'll take away your friends if you don't do what we say) has absolutely been used by many different churches. There are entire communities from people who have come from abusive church systems like LDS after having lost their social connections. I have direct personal stories of multiple people in my life directly harmed by their [parents] churches because it's more important to be a part of the church than to maintain a relationship with your child.

It's not hard to look at the teachings of Jesus, which are respectable (love thy neighbor, feed the poor, etc), and look how aptly those who claim to be most religious took those lessons. Nobody who is christian in values (believes in Jesus lessons rather than the abstract idea of Jesus) would vote for Trump and yet I don't think it is a stretch to say zealous Christians preferred Trump. When I grew up in the church, they said it was time to stand in front of the congregation and confirm your baptism and say that you believe in god. I wasn't convinced, and so the pastor told me I was going to be doomed to a life of crime if I didn't get confirmed. "Don't bear false witness" but do stand in front of the church and directly lie about your beliefs. Immediate contradiction, immediately obvious that the church is not primarily concerned with truth. I might not know what's true, but I know for sure contradictions are false.

I don't think it makes sense to trust a pastor who depends on your relationship with the church for their paycheck with life advice over someone who has studied the causes/treatments for divorce, depression, or anything else. There are many stories of pastors trying to keep people who should divorce together for the sake of the church. Pastors probably have more experience than the average person, but probably don't have better outcomes than those derived via research and I certainly wouldn't trust them to write federal legal policy. I definitely believe there are probably many pastors who are much better than many other mental health professionals, and are probably much more accessible both mentally and monetarily, so pastors probably have a net positive effect in this area.

It wouldn't even surprise me if seminary school were to directly teach many topics academically or use academic methods and authority, but it's still done in the context of tithing and one truth (god exists) that is beyond critical examination, the yes is presupposed.

Just to be clear, I think there are churches that improve the world and many offer things that are otherwise missing in [american] society like a sense of community. I spent a lot of time traveling and many countries do not have a semblance of "the golden rule," which results in a low trust society. I highly suspect Christianity is a major driver of teaching the golden rule in America.

> This doesn't apply to a pastor of one of those super-churches

And that is the crux of the issue. You can't put yourself in a member of their congregations shoes and apply the same line of thought to them. That person is in their congregation so they probably trust that church with life advice and christian authority. The megachurch person is to you, as you are to me.