Documents of the Christian Church, 3rd ed.
Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1999
The 2nd and 3rd editions are not completely the same.
An increasing number of scientific and technological advances bring with them complex ethical dilemmas, as the churches seek to interpret the contemporary world with the long-standing Christian means of Scripture, tradition, and reason. This edition includes additional material, which, it is hoped, bears witness to these newer concerns.
Understandably, several of the original Bettenson stands are continued: ecumenism, the (Roman) Catholic Councils, theological controversy. However, the need for a new edition becomes apparent when one recalls that, at the time of the previous edition (1963), the Second Vatican Council had just begun to meet, the civil rights movement was barely under way, the feminist issue was not yet as prominent as it was to be later, the world was split -- Berlin literally so -- into two power blocks with fear of massive nuclear strikes. Christian history does not stand still; nevertheless, it is a testimony to Betterson that his volume has not been discontinued, but rather expanded to reflect the developments of the last thirty-five years.
Part I: (The same as in the 2nd Edition)
Part II: (The same as in Part I up to, and including, Section IX)
Section X: The Roman Church from the Counter-Reformation to the Present
Section XI: The British Churches in the Seventeenth Century
Section XII: The British Churches in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
Section XIII: The Roman Catholic Church at the Second Vatican Council
Section XIV: The Twentieth Century World Churches: Justice, Peace, and the Environment
Section XV: The Twentieth Century World Churches and Inter-Faith Dialogue
Section XVI: The Twentieth Century Churches and Christian Unity
Section XVII: The Twentieth Century Churches: Sexuality and Procreation
