"The Particular" is the Achilles Heel of Christianity

I've come to wonder how or why Christians focus on details but not the big picture. That is, they are forever preaching about some specific thing that happened or some specific thing a person, like Jesus or Paul, said about the event. I've come to learn this is a characteristic of Christianity called "The Particular." 

My summary of what "The Particular" is and is not goes like this. Countless times on this blog and every day on Christian sites believers explain particulars. I hate to spend readers time going over the particulars because everyone already knows what they are: On a specific date, Jesus said he would die for our sins. Then he did, then he came back to life, yada yada. Then there is the God who is so particular he knows every bird and every hair on your head.

Contrast that version of "particulars" to the version of Christianity written and spoken about by the late Episcopalian Biship John Shelby Spong. He maintained the God is so large and mysterious we know nothing about him or his thinking.

The reason "The Particular" is losing ground is because people have become skeptical of its details. If the central message of the faith is that Jesus said he died for our sins and by being a member of the club our sins are forgiven, it raises this problem: What if Jesus never said this? Further, what if there was no actual crucifixion nor resurrection? Basing the entire faith on The Particular is a fool's errand. Basing it on John Shelby Spong's version leaves nothing hanging out there to be chopped off and destroyed.

The Spong version, however, lacks something many of the faithful love. It is the ability to condemn those the faithful wants to control. How can they control and condemn women who have abortions if there is no "particular" passage from the Bibel to use against them. The fun is gone. 

The Bible is packed with "particulars." Lot's wife turned to a pillar of salt. Jesus traveled here. Paul traveled there. Noah's flood and the earth shook from the crucifixion. Particulars don't persuade. Try something else. 

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