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This whole series of consequences has resurrected a key Biblical teaching:

Corporate guilt

It operates at two levels:

#1 The sin of omission -- especially in rescuing those most at risk:

10 If you falter in a time of trouble,
how small is your strength!
11 Rescue those being led away to death;
hold back those staggering toward slaughter.
12 If you say, “But we knew nothing about this,”
does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who guards your life know it?
Will he not repay everyone according to what they have done? (Proverbs 24:10-12)

And...what they (we) have left undone.

Many on the Penn State staff sadly could not say, "we knew nothing about this."

And what is true of the Penn State staff applies to each of us re: our aborted neighbors who die almost daily.

#2 Identificational repentance...Each of the major Old Testament prophets identified with the sin of the Israelites -- even if they themselves weren't personally guilty of this. Ultimately, the Lamb of God, the Messiah, did the same thing. He was perfect, yet the apostle Paul said, He identified with the sin of the people by taking on that sin (2 Cor. 5:21; Gal. 3:13)

Jesus, our Lord, when He became sin for each of us (2 Cor. 5:21), became that sin of pedophilia (Sandusky), that sin of looking the other way (Penn State staff), that sin of smugness (me, others). He identified with our sin and took it as His own.

May the entire state of Pennsylvania (& the rest of us across the states) release that sin to Him now. It's His. He owns it. He paid for it. Fully. The Lord forgives us not because we deserve it or earned it; but because of WHO HE IS...a God of loving-kindness and mercy and grace.

Yes, justice and accountability comes. But also grace and mercy through our Lord Jesus Christ. May the comfortable be afflicted; but may then then turn to our Lord -- and as the afflicted be comforted.

Let us all pray for the people of Pennsylvania in these emotional hours.