Trendshredders: Sorry, Not Sorry

Welcome to the first edition of Trendshredders, our series of blog posts that scrutinize an internet or marketing trend as a site for reflection.

A few weeks ago, I opened Facebook and Instagram, as one does, and I was shocked to see a surprising amount of remorse. Dozens of businesses, churches, and other organizations were posting multi-paragraph public apologies—the kind usually reserved for scandals. My first thought was, Is it time for Amenable to shift to crisis PR?, and this thought was quickly followed by a second one: Wait, what in the world is going on?  

Here’s an example apology from Brick:

In a way, it’s reasonable to poke fun at the vacuous damage control that motivates internet apologies, but I think the faux pas of a fake apology (a fauxpology, if you will) says a lot about our collective understanding of accountability online.

At this point, internet apologies are a genre unto themselves, squished into an awkward space between official proclamation and postable disposability. Even the best ones can feel a bit hollow because they’re meant to be seen and forgotten as soon as the feed refreshes. After all, what’s easier than hitting post?

When I saw these posts from businesses, I dismissed them as a variation on the classic “…not” joke. All the humor of sending a fake break-up text on your wedding anniversary. 

Upon closer inspection, however, I noticed that dozens of churches and nonprofits were using the same meme-heavy format, and I was troubled by quotes like the following:

“We didn’t mean to make serving Jesus this fulfilling, and with two more weeks remaining, we sincerely apologize because we are NOT slowing down.”

“Above all, we deeply apologize for creating an atmosphere so welcoming, you could cry.”

“We are actively investigating these reports. Early findings suggest that authentic community, intentional reconciliation, and Kingdom focused teaching may be responsible for people finding their place, discovering their purpose, and making a real difference.”

More importantly, most of the posts I saw were not from organizations I follow, which means the algorithm’s appetite for scandal ate them up and regurgitated them into my feed. It’s certainly a form of engagement, but my first impression was flippancy. 

At best, these are just stupidly incoherent inside jokes for the congregation, but I think they have theological consequences.

According to a 2025 Gallup Poll, public trust in pastors is at an all-time low, and only 27% of those polled believe pastors adhere to high standards of ethics and honesty, compared to 64% in the early 2000s. Similarly, 1 in 5 adults view the profession as low trustworthiness. When abuse scandals, toxic leadership, and financial mismanagement are recurrent themes in American church culture, it’s hard to blame the lack of trust.

Churches are often dangerously insular, and faux-remorse suggests a confidence I find disturbing. Humor is rooted in absurdity—the disconnect between reality and what couldn’t be. The joke, then, is that a church would never have a reason to apologize. While it’s almost certainly unintentional, these posts become a way of pre-emptively avoiding accountability. By appropriating the language of repentance for humor, it reads as deep cynicism, that an apology is something to accept and forget with the speed of an Instagram post. You can’t make a genuine apology with the same materials as a fake one.

It calls to mind the countless cases—which I will leave unnamed here—where a pastor does something that would be unforgivable in any other professional context, only to be re-platformed under the pretense of redemption. He said sorry. Move on. We’re in a post-truth moment of cultural denial, where those in power can escape consequences by saying, That didn’t happen, and if it did, it wasn’t a big deal. By treating the concept of public apology so lightly, churches are implicitly reinforcing this problem and brushing aside the very real concerns that may keep people outside the institution. 

If this feels like an awful lot of hand-wringing for a communications firm, it’s because we often encounter churches who are passionate about outreach but unintentionally building walls that keep people out, whether that’s insensitivity to language choices or a tacit assumption that their way is the only right way so it doesn’t need explained. If any organization—but especially a church—wants to succeed in its mission, it needs to begin in a place of self-critique. It needs to be willing to interrogate the casual decisions that estrange others. If it truly believes its work is important, it needs to treat it as such. One day, you will probably have to apologize, and you should be ready to mean it because that will mean everything to your audience.

My point is simple: You can’t build trust and be flippant about truth.