Corporate Repentance - Robert J. Wieland

(It is implied that no descendant of Abraham
choosing to dwell outside "Jerusalem" will share in
the blessing. After the Babylonian Captivity, those
Jews were indeed lost to history who chose to
remain in the nations where they were scattered,
refusing to move back to the corporate, ancestral
nation in Palestine.)
Does it seem impossible that a spirit of
contrition can be poured out on a leadership and a
world church congested by organizational
complexity? The more involved the church
becomes with its multitudinous entities, the greater
is the danger of its huge collective self choking the
simple, direct promptings of the Holy Spirit. Each
individual catching a vision is tempted to feel that
his hands are tied—what can he do? The great
organizational monolith, permeated with formalism
and lukewarmness, seems to move only at a snail's
pace. Aside from this "Spirit of grace and
supplication," the nearer we come to the end of
time and the bigger the church becomes, the more
complex and congested is its movement, and the
more remote appears the prospect of this
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