truth and tradition and corporate entities

Thomas Hohstadt has published a further reflection on mission in a postmodern culture. An interesting article though not saying anything quite as groundbreaking as he is capable of.

One bit caught my attention though but: "God speaks to individuals, not institutions. He does not subject His Truth to the pecking orders of mediation and arbitration. He does not filter His Truth through worldly societies or cultures--even "religious" cultures. Instead, Truth enters the world pristine, unmediated. And, as the transforming power of faith is always an individual experience, so is the inspired witness of that experience."

I'm not sure I agree that God does not speak to institutions: "Write to the Angel of the Church in ... Smyrna ... Pergamum ... Laodicea"; it seems to me that the institution of the church in those places is being addressed at that point. If the Walter Wink thesis about the hermeneutics of 'Principalities and Powers' [in Naming the Powers...
] is basically right [and I think it is] then passages such as Eph.3.9-10 ["to make everyone see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things; so that through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. " NRSV] seem to indicate God precisely addressing institutions -even if mediatedly through the church in this case -which would seem to contradict what I think Thom is saying here. The individualism of this take is understandable but seems, in the end, to come down to a reductio, a nothing-buttery. I think part of our task is to envisage how corporate humanity may be addressed and called. This is not to take responsibility away from individuals but it is to open up a whole dimension of human be-ing that enlightenment individualism has lost.

Admittedly post-modernity's relationship with individualism is contested [even the term post-modern in such cases may indicate an ideological stance in relation to individualism see Liquid Modernity]. However it does seem to me that feminist writings and other concerns are pointing us towards more communitarian ways of thinking -even if individualism is making it hard to see our way through.