Reconciliation is an accomplished fact. It is entirely outside of yourself, and it is simply to be received. There is a new view of living, no longer for self, but for God; to die to self and live to Christ. God has taken the initiative to reconcile man back to himself. God is not reconciled to man, as though God were partly to blame for the enmity. Rather, man is reconciled to God, for it is man who moved away from God. When people need to be reconciled to one another, it normally involves a situation where fault lies on both sides to some degree. Not so with the case between man and God, man has moved away from God, and it is man who needs to be reconciled back to God, not God back to man. The basic idea of reconciling is to change or make otherwise. This is the reverse of Hellenistic religion, where it is the human being that seeks restoration of the gods’ favor, and also of Judaism, where confession of sin and repentance are the means by which reconciliation with God is sought. It is not that we must reconcile ourselves to God. Rather, we are to be reconciled, that is, to accept what God has already achieved. It is not merely that we acquire a right standing or do good works; we actually become righteous. For through what Christ had accomplished, we truly assume his righteousness, just as Christ assumed our sin. If our debts are not posted to our account, it is because someone else has legally assumed them. Christ righteousness ours, and our sin his.
The same thing we make of all incoherent religious ravings. Ignore it and hope it goes away, even though it never does.
We have two sides of the brain. The left brain is differential and the right brain is integral. When we differentiate in math we try to find the slope of a curve at a point. When we integrate we find the area under the curve. Reconciliation means going from the differential left brain that divides into slope and points, back to the right brain that integrates (summation). Religion is more right brained. The left brain is useful to science since it allows us to differentiate reality down to the tiny details. Science is not about emotion, but occurs without emotions (Mr Spock). If we use the left brain to differentiate, based on emotional and subjective value judgements, such as stereo-types, the left brain can be used to divide humans along emotional lines. This is not science. Reconciliation is about going back to the integration processes of right side of the brain. In the right brain, even if what you believe is subjective and not objective, your POV changes from left brain dividing, into right brain integration. This may not be true either but at least it reconciles each with other humans via the integration; love. If I could take your ego consciousness out of the left brain, and place it in the right brain for a day, this hardware zone processes data differently. It does not try to break things down into details or opposites, but builds them into a composite. You would see the world in 3-D even if this was only based on personal subjectivity. Religion is an ancient gateway to the right brain, just as science is the gateway to the modern left brain. It is useful to go through both gates since there are situations where differentiation and integration are both needed.
The original post in this thread appears to me to be nothing more than Christian preaching. But we can make it into something more interesting than that, by asking questions about it and by commenting on it. 'Reconciliation' of what to what? And why should somebody believe that reconciliation is necessary in the first place? Is lack of reconciliation (whatever that means) really our problem? That sounds promising: A process that reduces our human fascination with our own selves (whatever a 'self' is supposed to be). But I see several apparent problems. First of all, it supposes that we already believe in the reality of your God, your Christ, and in the truth of your scriptures. I certainly don't. So even if we broadly agree about the value of these kind of inner movements (and not everyone does), why should they be pursued in specifically Christian form? How could they possibly be pursued by a non-Christian like myself? Second, what does 'it is simply to be received' mean? If God exists and if God thinks my reconciliation is valuable, then God shouldn't have any problem reconciling me. (Whatever that means.) But there's something more here, something that I'm apparently being called upon to do, in order for the whole thing to work. What is it? That needs explanation. Third, is it really true that a Christian 'no longer lives for self', that s/he truly 'dies to self', when the whole thing seems to be about one's self acquiring some giant pay-off at the end, namely the self's eternal life in heavenly bliss? That sounds like Christians are imagining an infinite aggrandizement of self. That suggests a fourth problem. You say that this wonderous transformation comes from outside and is only to be received. But can 'dying to self' really be accomplished merely through what the Hindus might call 'bhakti', through devotion to a deity from some religious myth? And fifth, perhaps a few medieval monastic saints came close to the necessary kind of devotion, loving and contemplating God single-mindedly in their monastic cells to the point when all sense of self was lost. But do everyday Christians ever approach anything remotely like that? (The Protestants felt fine getting rid of monasticism.) My experience is that the typical Christian has most emphatically NOT 'died to self'. Christians remain just as fascinated with feeding their egos as anyone else. (That's often especially true of the preachers among them.) So whatever these Christians may or may not have 'received' from on high, it doesn't seem to me to be working very well.
Judaism is no different Even more impressive are recent studies on the correlation between harmonious relationships and good health. For years, studies have shown that married people live longer. They are less likely to get pneumonia, have surgery, develop cancer, or have heart attacks. The New York Times (April 14, 2010) cited a group of Swedish researchers who found that being married is associated with a lower risk for dementia. More recent studies, however, indicate that it is not the state of marriage itself but rather the level of love and harmony in the marriage that accounts for the increased health benefits: One recent study suggests that a stressful marriage can be as bad for the heart as a regular smoking habit. And despite years of research suggesting that single people have poorer health than those who marry, a major study released last year concluded that single people who have never married have better health than those who married and then divorced. [“Is Marriage Good for Your Health?” New York Times] http://www.aish.com/sp/pg/The-Danger-in-Your-Head.html
