working theological consensus in the Presbyterian Church" by the late 1950s as "an alternative both to liberalism and fundamentalism." The Special Committee on a Brief Contemporary Statement of Faith began preparing the Confession of 1967 in 1958 as a response to the Presbytery of Amarillo's 1957 overture to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America for an updated version of the Westminster Shorter Catechism in contemporary language. After considering the rewrite of the Catechism, the General Assembly instead decided to draft a new, contemporary statement of faith to be included in the constitution of the church after its 1958 union with the United Presbyterian Church of North America. The Special Committee's report was first presented to the UPCUSA's General Assembly in 1965. The committee was chaired by Edward Dowey Jr., professor at Princeton Theological Seminary and the single layman on the committee was the American philosopher Samuel Martin Thompson at Monmouth College (Illinois). Theology Much of the confession's text is dedicated to the subject of reconciliation. It is written in three parts which the committee's chair designates as representing the faith, the love, and the hope of the Christian tradition. God's "Work of Reconciliation" Section I is an account of the Church's faith. It first establishes God's transcendence over humanity, then describes the fall of man into sin, depicts God's sacrifice, and then calls humanity to faith as a response to God's grace. It is told as a story of reconciliation, where God "alone reconciles the world to himself" by grace through the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. This Reconciliation is called one of the Bible's ultimate truths and an eternal promise that God has provided a way to heal the estranged relationship between man and himself after the fall. Section I's message is seen as central to Christian doctrine and is essentially a reaffirmation of faith. The confession asserts that the Church has been reconciled to God. Ministry of reconciliation Section II outlines how the Church should respond to God's grace and primarily deals with reconciliation between men. Dowey refers to this section as an expression of Christian love. The Confession states that to be reconciled to God is to be sent into the world as his reconciling community. The Church has been entrusted with God's message of reconciliation and it also shares his labor of healing the enmities which separate