Gary Tyra - Pursuing Moral Faithfulness: Ethics and Christian Discipleship

Ethics and Christian Discipleship

GARY TYRA

www.IVPress.com/academic

InterVarsity Press
P.O. Box 1400,
Downers Grove, IL
60515-1426
ivpress.com

2015 by Gary Tyra

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from InterVarsity Press.

InterVarsity Press is the book-publishing division of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, a movement of students and faculty active on campus at hundreds of universities, colleges and schools of nursing in the United States of America, and a member movement of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. For information about local and regional activities, visit intervarsity.org.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION, NIV Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

While any stories in this book are true, some names and identifying information may have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.

Cover design: Cindy Kiple
Images: double fork road sign: zager/iStockphoto
forked road sign: sigurcamp/iStockphoto
U-turn sign: P_Wei/iStockphoto

ISBN 978-0-8308-9776-6 (digital)
ISBN 978-0-8308-2465-6 (print)

The publication of a book is usually a team effort. To cite a familiar phrase: It takes a village! While this has always been my experience as an author, it was especially so with respect to Pursuing Moral Faithfulness. Thus, in the next page or two I want to express my deep gratitude to some folks critical to this works realization.

To begin, I want to express my heartfelt appreciation to the usual suspects: the library staff at Vanguard University (especially Jack Morgan); the editorial, production and marketing teams at IVP Academic (in particular, the books editor David Congdon); my former editor, Gary Deddo, who not only secured the project for IVP but also provided some invaluable feedback on an early draft of the work; my son, Brandon, and philosopher friend, R. Scott Smith, both of whom read portions of the books manuscript and afforded me some helpful counsel; the numerous authors (too many to mention by name, Im afraid) whose excellent works I interact with in this volume; my friend and Vanguard University colleague, Rich Israel, who functioned as a sounding board and offered many words of encouragement along the way; and finally, my dear wife, Patti, whose patience, love, wisdom and proofreading skills have played such a huge role in all the books I (we) have produced. Though the acknowledgments included in this paragraph might appear to be pro forma, such is not the case. I deeply appreciate the way in which each of these professionals, personal friends and family members contributed to this publishing project.

In addition, I want to express special thanks to those many students who have, over the years, indicated their appreciation for the ethical teaching presented in these pages. It was this enthusiastic response to the moral training I was attempting to provide, along with a growing awareness that too many professing Christians are making important moral choices the way their non-Christian peers do, that eventually convinced me I should pen this work. While Ive been careful in all my books to write with my students and not merely other scholars in view, this literary endeavor was special in this regard. With my minds eye I kept seeing the faces of my students and remembering my interactions with them. These mental images and recollections, pleasant and poignant at the same time, greatly influenced this book in terms of both its message and method. Though any failings inherent in it are my responsibility alone, its my hope that Pursuing Moral Faithfulness does justice to what those who have studied Christian ethics with me say theyve taken away from the experience, and that they will appreciate the new material presented here.

Then again, while its true that the needs of my students (past, present and future) have influenced this work in some significant ways, I obviously didnt produce it only for them. Its also my hope that many students and church members who will never study with me in person will benefit from the book, and that not a few professors, church leaders and student-life professionals will choose to use it as a valued tool in their own disciple-making and moral-formation endeavors.

That said, I suspect its not uncommon for an author of a newly released book to be a bit anxious about how it will be received, especially if the work breaks new ground or takes a unique approach. In its introduction I make clear how and why Pursuing Moral Faithfulness is not your typical Christian ethics text. Thus, I also want to communicate here a word of appreciation to the many university and ministry colleagues who, once they heard about what I was up to in this book, immediately responded with what seemed to be sincere expressions of interest, appreciation and support. While these reactions are certainly no guarantee of success, they did succeed in providing this author with a bit of hope that his newest work might be warmly received by members of its intended audiencesnot in spite of its distinctive features, but precisely because of them!

Finally, at the risk of sounding super-spiritual, I want to acknowledge our Trinitarian GodFather, Son and Holy Spiritwhose prior faithfulness toward me keeps inspiring a deep desire to render to him a moral (and missional) faithfulness in return. Its my sincere hope that in at least some small manner this book will succeed at encouraging others to want to do the same. While Id like to think that each of my books is saying something important, its the thought that Pursuing Moral Faithfulness might actually have the effect of enabling Christian disciples to, like Jesus, make moral choices by allowing the Spirit to help them hear and honor the heart of the Father that makes it exceedingly special to me. How could it not be?

In summary, my sincere thanks goes out to everyone who in one way or another helped make this book possible, and to those who have given me reason to believe it can make a difference in the world. I appreciate you allthe members of my villagevery much!

As a religion professor at a Christian liberal arts university, my responsibilities call for me to participate in the moral as well as spiritual and ministry formation of students. Not long ago an intelligent, culturally savvy student studying Christian ethics with me included in his final paper a telling admission. To be more precise, this young man in his mid- to late twenties prefaced his paper with a twofold confession: First, prior to taking this ethics course, he had neglected to give any serious consideration to the process by which he had been making ethical decisions. Second, as a result of this lack of ethical reflection, he had been guilty of making important moral choices just like many non-Christians doin an unbalanced and essentially irresponsible manner.

I wish I could say that this twofold confession makes this particular student unique. Actually, my experience has been that just the opposite is trueit makes him iconic instead!