The co-signers of the document were Charles Colson and Richard John Neuhaus, representing each side of the discussions.
[1] It was part of a larger ecumenical rapprochement in the United States that had begun in the 1970s with Catholic-Evangelical collaboration and in later para-church organizations such as Moral Majority founded by Jerry Falwell at the urging of Francis Schaeffer and his son Frank Schaeffer.
[2] The statement is written as a testimony that spells out the need for Protestants and Catholics to deliver a common witness to the modern world at the eve of the third millennium.
They emphasize that sola fide is a fundamental distinctive of evangelical theology, which fundamentally divides evangelicals and Catholics theologically, as Rome condemned sola fide at the Council of Trent and has never lifted that condemnation (anathema).
They claim, 'It falls lock-step into line with our culture's minimalist approach to truth issues'.