The area of contemporary Christian ethics is marked by a lively debate over the question, Is there a specifically Christian morality? The debate is significant not only for the area of ethics but also for the larger theological context of fundamental questions in Christology, anthropology and soteriology. Author Lucien Richard O.M.I. surveys the major Roman Catholic and Protestant answers to this question and concludes that Christian ethics is intrinsically linked to the ecclesial and narrative nature of Christianity and therefore is essentially historical and evolving. Furthermore the Christian community in its historical particularity its life-world altering message its distinctive complex of symbols and intersubjectivity must be considered as a specific matrix of faith and ethics.