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Christian ethics probably sounds like a good idea to most people. You take Christianity, and then you find out what kind of ethics it promotes. Nonetheless, it is an empty phrase. If we mean by ethics a set of abstract principles or a theory about what makes certain acts obligatory, then Christianity has no such thing. Christian ethics is nothing more than simply being a good Christian. Christian ethics becomes just another name for Christian theology. What Christianity teaches about ethics is nothing different from or more than what Christianity teaches about Jesus Christ.

While Christian ethics is not only an empty idea, it is also a dangerous one. Trying to find something called "Christian ethics" risks separating the moral life from its religious foundation. If you start with the doctrines of Christian faith, and think them through in a consistent and full manner, then you will get Christian ethics. If you start with some general notion of ethical standards, however, then it is unlikely you will be able to find your way back to the specifics of Christian faith.

Nonetheless, there are a lot of professors in the universities who teach what is called "Christian ethics," or sometimes, more inclusively, "religious ethics." The study of religious ethics is one of the last strongholds of liberal Protestantism in the academy, a way of reflecting on Christianity while also speaking to a broad audience on the basis of universal principles and premises. Ethicists raise questions of ultimacy and urge students to change and grow as they take positions on issues of both personal and public significance. It is a hybrid discipline that teaches religion indirectly by focusing on common ethical problems.

I have a friend who teaches Christian ethics, and he has told me, a Christian theologian with ethical interests, that I could not teach at his state university because what I do is too narrow, too parochial. He, on the other hand, does something that is relevant and appropriate to a diverse student body. He assumes that it is easier to talk about generic ethical problems than concrete religious beliefs.

But don't the former lead directly into the latter? Indeed, the problem with my friend's line of thinking is that he does something that does not exist. Either he must employ some intellectual contortions to hide the theological assumptions of the ethicists he teaches—which would be intellectually dishonest no matter how convenient; how can you teach Augustine or Aquinas without talking about their theological beliefs?—or he must teach Christian ethics as a form of theology, and thus he does the same thing that I do, only with a slightly different emphasis.

His dilemma has been brought about by trends within philosophy, not theology. For many years now, philosophers have been backing away from the Enlightenment goal of defending a universal morality grounded in pure reason alone. This retreat has made room for a resurgence in theological ethics, since all ethical thought is now recognized as local, not universal.

Rather than rejecting the artificial boundaries of professionalization, however, many religious ethicists insist that they are not theologians. Thus, Christian ethics is still struggling for a sense of identity by borrowing from philosophical schools for direction and theoretical framework. What is the alternative? Can ethics be grounded in the Bible alone?

The problem is that the Bible does not provide us with an ethics, generally conceived. The many different books that make up the Bible are full of prescriptions, injunctions, commandments, warnings, recommendations, counsel, parables, opinions, admonishments, advice—in sum, a plethora of do's and don'ts that appeal to a variety of ethical principles, rules, and insights. Moreover, the general ethical principle expressed in a specific biblical commandment is frequently hard to extract and turn into an absolute rule. The danger of grounding ethics in the Bible alone is not that it does too much with the Bible but that it does too little. Christians do not look at the Bible but through it, letting it shape us in many complex ways.

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