The Particularity of the Scandal: God in a Specific Postcode

After writing on the Scandal of Particularity, I decided I would revisit to elaborate some further points, so view this as part two. 

​To truly grasp the struggle of faith while sitting in a drafty pew or a bustling Costa in Wantage, one has to confront what theologians call the Scandal of Particularity. For the modern English mind; raised on the sensible, universal laws of physics and the broad, inclusive strokes of secular humanism - there is something deeply jarring about the idea that the Infinite chose to manifest in a specific, obscure, and rather dusty "here" rather than a general, enlightened "everywhere."

​In our globalized Britain, we are taught to value the universal. We like our truths to be democratic and accessible to everyone at any time, like a GB News broadcast or a local library. Yet, Christianity asserts that the hinge of history isn't a vague feeling of spirituality or a set of timeless moral principles, but a singular, gritty, historical event. As the Roman historian Suetonius noted, the early Christians were seen as a "new and mischievous superstition" precisely because they tied their cosmic hopes to a specific man, Chrestus, who had been executed under a specific Roman prefect.

​The Geography of Grace

​The struggle for us is bridging the gap between the limestone hills of Judea and the grey pavements of the M25. We find it difficult to reconcile the God of all the galaxies with the Jesus of a specific tax bracket. C.S. Lewis, perhaps the most famous, and somewhat sensible Englishman to tackle this, noted that God’s way of working is often selective in a way that feels inherently unfair to our modern sensibilities. He wrote that the central miracle is the Incarnation: God becoming a man.

​The "scandal" is that if you want to find God, you cannot simply look inward to your own "personal truth"; you have to look outward to a specific Jewish man who lived two thousand years ago. This offends our British sense of self-sufficiency. It suggests that truth isn't something we manufacture in a laboratory or a philosophy seminar, but something, or someone we encounter, often quite inconveniently.

​The Petersonian "Cornerstone"

​Jordan Peterson often frames this struggle through the lens of the Cornerstone. He argues that the story of Christ represents the ultimate meta-narrative which is the one story that anchors all others. However, the scandal remains: why that story? Why that man? Peterson suggests that the particularity of Christ is necessary because we humans cannot relate to an abstraction. We need a "pattern of being" that is grounded in the finite. For the English believer, the struggle is accepting that the Infinite entered the Finite without losing its essence, much like trying to fit the entire ocean into a pint glass.

​In the Roman era, this was revolutionary and frankly quite dangerous. To the Romans, religion was a civic duty; a broad, inclusive pantheon or temple where you could add as many gods as you liked, provided you also bowed to Caesar. The Christians’ insistence on the particular Lordship of Jesus was seen as narrow-minded and even atheistic because it rejected all other gods. Today, our struggle is strikingly similar. We are perfectly happy to talk about "The Universe" or "Higher Powers" over a pint (or a Jack & Coke in my case), but the moment we mention the name "Jesus," the pub goes quiet. It’s too specific. It’s too personal. It’s too particular.

​The Anchor in the Gale

​Yet, this scandal is also the only thing that offers real hope. A general god provides only general comfort, which is about as useful as a general weather forecast when you’re standing in a downpour in Oxford. A particular God - one who had a mother, felt the biting cold, and bled under Roman iron, is a God who actually understands the specific, particular pains of an English Wednesday (hump day!).

​The struggle to believe is, in many ways, the struggle to accept that we are seen not just as a collective "humanity," but as individuals by a God who was once an individual Himself. We trade the safety of a vague, distant deity for the terrifying, beautiful intimacy of a God who has a face, a history, and a name.

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