Criticisms
Each of the theories that fall under the broad heading "Christian Ethics" have their own short-comings:
It is also possible to think critically about other aspects of Christian Ethics. Relying on prayer, the conscience, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, religious experiences etc. can give very subjective results. For Christians, their relationship with God is central to their faith and impacts on every decision they make. However, this means that two Christians within the same church, reading the same Bible translations can respond in completely different ways to dilemmas such as euthanasia, genetic engineering, IVF etc.
For Catholics, the church plays a much more central role than in other denominations. This makes Catholic ethics less subjective. However, the Catholic Church has many critics. Pope John Paul II was very conservative, and his successor, Pope Benedict, seems even more so. This means that the church continues to be criticised for being inflexible and out-of-touch with the modern world. The Church still prohibits the use of condoms in all circumstances; homosexuality is seen as a tendency towards 'intrinsic moral evil' (Pope Benedict) etc.
Protestant ethics relies much more heavily on scripture. This has been criticised on a number of levels. Firstly, many people see the Bible as a collection of writings from a patriarchal, homophobic era, written by people whose ethical thinking is now outdated. The Bible is also criticised for contradicting itself; the 'God of the Old Testament' is different from the 'God of the New Testament'. A different sort of criticism of the Bible is that it is so large (66 books in the non-Catholic Bible; more if you count the Apocrypha) it can say anything you want it to say.
