Christian Ethics: A Historical and Systematic Analysis of Its Dominant Ideas (1967) is a book by Ismail al-Faruqi that examines Christian ethical thought in historical and systematic terms. Al-Faruqi writes from a Muslim standpoint and traces the development of the main Christian moral doctrines, arguing that several of them depart from the teachings of Jesus through what he identifies as theological inconsistency and the absorption of non-Semitic ideas. The book argues for an ethical framework grounded in reason. It was among the earliest sustained Muslim critiques of Christian dogma and ethics in the modern era, and it drew responses from both Muslim and Christian scholars working in comparative religion and interfaith dialogue.

Al-Faruqi wrote Christian Ethics as part of his wider project of examining other religious traditions through reason and systematic analysis. He worked on the book during his time at McGill University, where Wilfred Cantwell Smith and Stanley Brice Frost shaped his thinking. He treated reason as the basis for academic dialogue and held that ethical inquiry offered neutral ground for evaluating religious doctrine. His aim was a full critique of Christian ethics set within the broader study of religious and moral philosophy.

Scholars describe the work as one of the first modern Muslim critiques of Christian theological and ethical development. Al-Faruqi's central claim is that Christianity moved away from the original teachings of Jesus by taking in Hellenistic and other non-Semitic influences, which he treated as distortions.

The book runs across several chapters, each treating a different aspect of Christian ethics and its historical development.

This chapter examines the Jewish context in which the teachings of Jesus emerged. Al-Faruqi discusses Hebrew racialism, the political and social conditions of the period, and the ethical norms current among the Jewish people. He argues that the Jewish view of human sinfulness fed into Christian thought, in particular the doctrine of original sin, which he dates to the exilic and post-exilic periods. He reads these developments as early forms of what he later calls "peccatism" and "saviourism".

Al-Faruqi examines the ethical teachings of Jesus and how they broke from Jewish norms. The chapter covers the approach of Jesus to politics, social questions, family, personal conduct, and cosmic concerns. Al-Faruqi reads Jesus as placing the intention behind an act above mere observance of the law.

This section sets the teachings of Jesus against later Christian legalism. Al-Faruqi criticises a development in Christian doctrine that, in his account, drifted far from the original message of Jesus. He draws a parallel between the ethics of Jesus and Sufi traditions.

Al-Faruqi traces how Christian ethics changed over time, above all during the Reformation and in modern Christianity. He discusses shifts in the understanding of sin, salvation, and the imago Dei (image of God), and criticises their effect on Christian thought. He holds that the doctrine of original sin runs directly against the teachings of Jesus, which in his reading make ethical worth a matter of the conscious self's will alone.