ethical decisions based on religious context?

In my medical ethics class, we are discussing the importance of religious context within the field of ethical decision making. 

John Finnis, author of "abortion and health care ethics", makes an argument that is based in a central way on Catholic thought. What role should religious principles and beliefs play in our ethical theorizing?

 Finnis argues that ethical theology in a manner that is quite independent of any religious premises. He supports that they are philosophical and scientific concerns that are decisively right for everyone but that they have nothing to do with our particular religious context. However, he does reference every human’s particular justifications of the four main principles: Autonomy, beneficence, non-malefience and justice.

I believe it is inevitable for our religious beliefs to play a large role in our ethical decision-making. Regardless of what you may believe about a particular god, many gods, or maybe no god at all, everyone has some particular considerations and specifications of what they believe about how the earth was made and what is in control of our destiny. Even if a certain individual does not claim to be “religious” at all, wouldn’t the choices pertaining to the context of what that person believes will affect where they go when they die have an impact on the moral obligations of that person?

challenging the relevance of historical context

Before the Bible belt...

Sensbach is drawing our eyes to focus on a more historically relevant justification of the south. He references Samuel Hill’s notion that the south has been rendered as historically a “limited-options culture.” He suggests, “Hardly any other aspect has the limitation of choices been more pronounced than in religion.” This is so true, the characterization of Christianity has been influenced and twisted by so many different industrialized classifications of denominations that our understanding of the religion has become merely an obstinate platform for justification and establishment among community.

However, Sencbach later proposes that the eighteenth century southern was hardly limited by options because of external influences. “The eighteenth-century South encompassed an even broader narrative of religious struggle, declension, and reinvention.” He continues to say that the eighteenth century was a obviously the most dynamic period in southern religious history. This is because the region was so receptive to their interactions with international influences. I found this historical evidence surprising because I had never realized the contextual significance of the religious transition in the south in that point in history.

Furthermore, the depiction of a “Christ-haunted” region interested me because I kept thinking about the two-fold relationship that Christians have in devotion to God. From one standpoint, we are “God-fearing” people; always eager to do the will of our Lord in fear of his mighty will. The other side of the relationship establishes the everlasting love and devotion that we receive unconditionally. So where is the line between the obedience of being “god-fearing” and the horror of a “Christ-haunted” area?