The Fitting Room by Kelly Minter

Author:Kelly Minter [Minter, Kelly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: REL012000 Religion / Christian Life / General
Publisher: David C Cook

I recently skimmed a book written by a truly exquisite writer who traveled the world looking for a Zen-like harmonious peace, receiving a generous enough advance from her publisher to pay for the whole excursion. (I am still holding out for a similar offer: How Kelly Discovered the Virtues in All Her Favorite European Cities over Delicately Prepared Cuisine, or something like that.) This author is bright and strings words together with a needle of brilliance and a thread of eloquence, but though I appreciate her writing style, she has stitched together a worldview of peace entirely different from my most foundational beliefs. Early in her book she writes, “I can’t swallow that one fixed rule of Christianity insisting that Christ is the only path to God.” 2

It is ironic that this exact fixed “rule” is the basis for all peace I have in my life: Jesus Christ. If He is not the only path to God, then as a Christian I have no basis for peace whatsoever, because my entire life, the forgiveness of my sin, and all my future hope hang upon the thread of this one truth. (“If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men,” writes Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:19.) I think this is why Paul so often addressed his letters with the phrase “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. ” Because peace cannot be separated from Jesus, and peace can exist only after grace. There is no peace if there is not first grace, because it is through this grace we are forgiven and can have a secure relationship with God, and that relationship brings peace to our restless souls.

So many have taken issue with the seeming exclusivity of Christianity, a belief this author can’t begin to “swallow.” (Timothy Keller, in his book Reason for God, does a remarkable job of treating the idea that every belief system is an exclusive one.) Yet it is this very claim of Jesus—“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6)—that offers us peace, because although the Person through whom salvation comes is singular, He is anything but exclusive, offering peace with God to those who desire Him from any race, gender, or culture, rich or poor.

Though Christ as the only way to God will indeed be hard to swallow for some, I wholeheartedly believe we must begin here, our only hope for true peace. Paul writes in Romans 5:1, “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” We’ve already addressed the idea of justification, but it bears repeating that since God sees Jesus’ righteousness when He looks upon His children, we have peace with Him. Peace with God means we have a restored relationship with Him, intimacy unbroken by sin. When Jesus takes that sin away, peace is given.

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