Documents of the Christian Church

Description

This selection of writings from the most important moments in the history of Christianity has become established as a classic reference work. This new edition brings the anthology up-to-date with a new section looking at issues facing the twenty-first century churches.

• Best-selling anthology covering 2,000 years of Christian theological and political debate
• Arranged chronologically and thematically for ease of use
• An ideal introduction to the key primary sources for the study both of church history and of the global Church today

New to this edition

• New material on twentieth-century church history added to Sections 14-17.
• Addition of Section 18 addressing issues facing the twenty-first century churches. Content includes material on the following topics: the global growth of Christianity; global poverty; the economy, trade, and debt; social justice ;migration; disability; domestic violence and child abuse; addiction; climate change; tension between the 'West' and the 'Middle East'; mission in a multi-faith society; mission in a postmodern society; genetic engineering; the internet; progress on Christian unity; and the unity of the Anglican Communion.

About the Author(s)

Edited by Henry Bettenson and Chris Maunder, Head of BA Theology & Religious Studies, York St John University

Table of Contents

I: The Early Church (to the Council of Chalcedon, 451)
1:The Church and the World
2: Creeds
3:The Earliest Testimony to the Gospels
4:The Person and Work of Christ
5:The Problem of the Relation of the Divinity and the Humanity in Christ
6:Pelagianism. Human Nature, Sin, and Grace
7:The Church, the Ministry, and the Sacraments
8:The Authority of the Holy See
9:Doctrine and Development. The Vincentian Canon
10:Christian Inscriptions
II: From the Council of Chalcedon to the Present
1:From Chalcedon to the Breach between East and West
2:The Empire and the Papacy
3:Monasticism and the Friars
4:The Church and Heresy
5:The Conciliar Movement
6:Scholasticism
7:The Church in England until the Reformation
8:The Reformation on the Continent
9:The Reformation in England
10:The Roman Catholic Church from the Counter-Reformation to the Second Vatican Council
11:The British Churches in the Seventeenth Century
12:The British Churches in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
13:The Roman Catholic Church at the Second Vatican Council
14:The Twentieth-Century World Churches: Justice, Peace, and the Environment
15:The Twentieth-Century World Churches and Inter-Faith Dialogue
16:The Twentieth-Century Churches and Christian Unity
17:The Twentieth-Century Churches: Sexuality and Procreation
18:The Churches and Twenty-First Century Issues

Reviews

"Some documents have over generations been recognised as key to understanding Christian history; those will be found in this collection, as they have been since long ago Henry Bettenson first conceived of the project. Now they are helpfully enriched with sources which might have astonished Bettenson, but which testify to the extraordinary variety of the communities which call themselves Christian." - Diarmaid Macculloch

"Great overview of both history of Christianity and contemporary issues." - Annika Hvithamar, University of Copenhagen

"This is a new and improved version of a popular and accessible old classic ... which brings together some of the most significant documents and texts in church history. ... the updated Bettenson and Maunder remains a very useful repository of a broad range of standard texts from across the centuries." - Lee Gatiss, Churchman