Confession of 1967 Ministry of Reconciliation

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

– 2 Corinthians 5:16-21

The turbulent decade of the 1960s challenged churches everywhere to restate their faith. While the second Vatican council was reformulating Roman Catholic thought and practice, the United Presbyterian Church In the United States developed the confession of 1967. In response to the conviction that the church must “bear a present witness to God’s grace in Jesus Christ,” what started out as a rewording of an earlier Brief Statement of the Reformed Faith became a contemporary restatement of basic Christian truths. What makes the Confession different is that it emphasizes the church’s role and mission in the modern world.

A number of social issues had found their way into the life of the church, including racial justice, and peacemaking. Christianity itself was entering a time of transition, in some cases from changes outside the church (Time magazine famously published their “God is Dead” cover in 1965), to growing theological divisions within most American denominations. The new confession attempted to speak to many of these issues with fresh interpretations of our theological foundations, and an emphasis on reconciliation.

How do we achieve reconciliation?  In our relationship with God, it is restoring what has been broken through our sinfulness.  We do this in confession, repentance, and coming to the Lord’s Table.  In our relationship with other people and with the world, a similar process is necessary.  Acknowledging our participation (knowingly and unknowingly) in injustice, repenting of that sin, and coming forward to make things better.  How is God calling us today to be ministers of reconciliation in our community and across the world?  Are we courageous enough to take up the ministry of reconciliation?

Lord Jesus Christ, you used your hands to heal; to lift up; to bless; to sow kindness and tenderness in desolate lives.   Forgive us when we keep our hands at our sides when we could be reaching out in love.   Lord Jesus Christ, you used your hands to bear the burdens of others and to feed the hungry.  Forgive us when we use our hands to take care of ourselves without any thought for those who are hungry or overwhelmed with adversity. Lord Jesus Christ, open our hands and our hearts to love as you loved and to care as you cared.  Lord Jesus Christ, help us to accept people as you accept them, as people made in the image of God, and precious to God.  We pray this prayer in your name. Amen

Confession of 1967 (excerpts)

One: In each time and place, there are particular problems and crises through which God calls the church to act. The church, guided by the Spirit, humbled by its own complicity and instructed by all attainable knowledge, seeks to discern the will of God and learn how to obey in these concrete situations. The following are particularly urgent at the present time.

All: God has created the peoples of the earth to be one universal family. In his reconciling love, God overcomes the barriers between sisters and brothers and breaks down every form of discrimination based on racial or ethnic difference, real or imaginary. 

One: The church is called to bring all people to receive and uphold one another as persons in all relationships of life: in employment, housing, education, leisure, marriage, family, church, and the exercise of political rights. 

All: Therefore, the church labors for the abolition of all racial discrimination and ministers to those injured by it. Congregations, individuals, or groups of Christians who exclude, dominate, or patronize others, however subtly, resist the Spirit of God and bring contempt on the faith which they profess God’s reconciliation in Jesus Christ is the ground of the peace, justice, and freedom among nations which all powers of government are called to serve and defend. 

One: The church, in its own life, is called to practice the forgiveness of enemies and to commend to the nations as practical politics the search for cooperation and peace. This search requires that the nations pursue fresh and responsible relations across every line of conflict, even at risk to national security, to reduce areas of strife and to broaden international understanding.

All: Reconciliation among nations becomes peculiarly urgent as countries develop nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, diverting human power and resources from constructive uses and risking the annihilation of humankind. Although nations may serve God’s purposes in history, the church which identifies the sovereignty of any one nation or any one way of life with the cause of God denies the Lordship of Christ and betrays its calling.

One: The reconciliation of humankind through Jesus Christ makes it plain that enslaving poverty in a world of abundance is an intolerable violation of God’s good creation. Because Jesus identified himself with the needy and exploited, the cause of the world’s poor is the cause of his disciples. 

All: The church cannot condone poverty, whether it is the product of unjust social structures, exploitation of the defenseless, lack of national resources, absence of technological understanding, or rapid expansion of populations. The church calls all people to use their abilities, their possessions, and the fruits of technology as gifts entrusted to them by God for the maintenance of their families and the advancement of the common welfare. It encourages those forces in human society that raise hopes for better conditions and provide people with opportunity for a decent living. 

One: A church that is indifferent to poverty, or evades responsibility in economic affairs, or is open to one social class only, or expects gratitude for its beneficence makes a mockery of reconciliation and offers no acceptable worship to God.