Gary Tyra

Regardless of whether you consider it a significant improvement or some kind of apostatizing backsliding, it is beyond a doubt many in Churches of Christ are reassessing and reconsidering their pneumatology and how they understand the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of Christians.

Behind all such reassessment and reconsideration remain the concerns of becoming overly “Calvinist” in terms of what one expects the Spirit to do to the Christian, or overly “Pentecostal” in terms of expressing life in the Spirit.

And yet here is Gary Tyra in Getting Real: Pneumatological Realism and the Spiritual, Moral, and Ministry Formation of Contemporary Christians arguing how many Evangelicals, even plenty of Pentecostal Evangelicals (whom he deemed “Pentevangelicals”), have themselves become functionally deist in their understanding of God and destitute in their relationship with His Spirit!

One can only imagine what he might think of a pneumatology which suggested the Spirit’s only engagement with the Christian is mediated by his or her reading and studying the Scriptures.

The author began by setting forth his thesis: Christians are called to maintain what the author deemed pneumatological realism, in which the Spirit of God is recognized as a real presence in one’s life and not merely some kind of abstraction. He compared and contrasted this pneumatological realism with the functional deism he identifies in much of what passes for Protestantism in the early twenty-first century, relying on both the Enlightenment concept of deism and the pervasiveness of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism as suggested by Christian Smith et al. He then considered what pneumatological realism looks like in terms of faithful engagement in and with the Spirit in terms of one’s spirituality, one’s moral behaviors, and in accomplishing the mission of God. He concludes with suggestions about how to practically encourage and foster pneumatological realism in a local church environment. The appendix seems to be the author’s thesis on Barth and prophetic preaching.

The author does come from a Pentecostal heritage but attempts to present pneumatological realism in more ecumenical ways.

The author does well when considering how God’s Spirit may prompt people in terms of faithfulness and service and how God is able to communicate in and through people in all kinds of different ways. “Coincidences” often aren’t. Yet I wonder if the author makes a bit too much of “prophetic preaching” because of a Pentecostal blurring of the lines between the one-time apostolic witness and our later efforts at contextualizing and applying that witness to our own time and place. It would be good to heed how the Spirit might prompt us in terms of that witness and how to make it effective in the twenty-first century. We might even be able to speak of a prophetic type of proclamation, one like the prophets inasmuch as it strongly and consistently applies the truth of God to people in the twenty-first century. But such messages are not inspired; we all have our limitations and what we focus on and what we comparatively neglect; as with all preaching, it is excellent to consider how the Spirit might work in and through such messages, but do we need to attempt to sacralize them further as prophetic utterances from the Spirit? Whatever possible upside is drowned out by the possible downsides.

There is much which would commend itself for pneumatological realism: the gift of the Holy Spirit was one of the great promises of the new covenant which would demonstrate a significant contrast with what had come before, and Paul makes much of the presence of the Spirit in the life of the believer. Such conversations have become far too reductive to information acquisition and distribution: some who have gone on before us seemed to think about the Spirit only in terms of making information known, and thus failed to imagine how the Spirit’s presence in life might energize and empower faithfulness in Christ. The same is true about the Calvinist emphasis and concern: yes, Calvinists went way too far in suggesting it is only the Spirit who could impart faith into a person, but imagining a person comes to faith without any spiritual influence is just as extreme as an over-reaction. Throughout the Scriptures, God works and people work; God works both in His own ways and through His servants. We are called to come to faith in Christ by our own initiative, and the Spirit will not compel or coerce us; nevertheless, do we not see, time and time again, how Paul encouraged believers to view the presence of the Spirit as the down payment of their salvation, to cultivate their relationship with God in Christ through that Spirit unto sanctification and the manifestation of the fruit of the Spirit, and to heed and follow the promptings of the Spirit? None of those things are the “speaking in tongues, prophecy, and knowledge” which would cease in 1 Corinthians 13:8-10. They remain no less important or powerful in 2024 than they were in 54.

So we do well to come to a better appreciation for the work of the Spirit of God in the life of the believer and how Christians are called to live their lives in the Spirit of God. Yet such has always, and will always, require discretion and wise judgment, discerning the Spirit of God from the various demonic spirits which would lead us astray. Making the Spirit all about information is almost a sure path to a functional deism which is bereft of the flourishing life of God in Christ through the Spirit, and it has not worked out that well for us.… (altro)

Recently I sat through a presentation where the presenter made the claim that people always act out of their own self-interest. That ethical egoism was enshrined as the only option for personal decision making made my inner-ethicist cringe. In that environment it was too much to hope for a full-scale discussion of ethical approaches (i.e. the role of rules, formational habits, or even the 'greater good'). While this discussion didn't happen in a religious environment, the moral decision making of Christians often looks the to the same as everyone else. And as much as I may balk at that presenter, we live in an ethical-egoist-age.
In Pursuing Moral Faithfulness, theologian Gary Tyra explores the realm of moral decision-making under the rubric of Christian discipleship. Tyra is professor of biblical and practical theology at Vanguard University and has more than three decades of pastoral experience. His approach to ethics as discipleship aims to set ethics within a larger frame. One that has the possibility of theological and moral realism, accounts for the Spirit's role in moral guidance, and balances respect for rules with considering consequences and cultivating character (21-27). The goal of ethics is to make thoughtful ethical decisions in keeping with what it means to be a follower of Christ.
This book divides into two sections. Part one introduces readers to Christian ethics and names the major ethical options (i.e. deontological and consequentialist approaches, and the effects of our cultural moral relativism on our ability to make ethical decisions). Part two aims at describing the ethic of responsible Christian discipleship: Christ-centered, biblically informed and Spirit empowered moral decision making.
Tyra is a pastor and theologian. His ethical formation came from studying with Lewis Smedes at Fuller Seminary (and practical theology from Ray Anderson). Throughout this book he focuses on the practical dimension of moral deliberation in the Christian life. The rubric of discipleship enables him to include the best elements of deontological, consequential and virtue ethics. In this respect his approach reminds me of Dennis Hollinger's (Choosing the Good, Baker Academic, 2002).
One of the features of Tyra's approach is his use of scripture. He points to the ethical insights of Micah 6:8, the importance of consequences and God given wisdom for proper moral deliberation evidenced in Proverbs 2, how Jesus' antithetical statements in the Sermon on the Mount (Mathew 5:21-47), reveal God's heart in a way that hyper-literal observance of the law did not (216-219). Tyra doesn't explore Torah at length or the ten commandments; he is more interested on what the heart behind a law is than mere legal observance. Laws and consequences are re-framed relationally. So is formation (the Spirit's work guiding and enabling our moral life). I think his articulation could have been sharpened by a more substantive engagement with the Pentateuch and the concept of covenant. however, Tyra paints a practical picture of what responsible Christian moral decisions look like.
This is a good introductory book for Christian ethics. Tyra argues for a thoughtful approach to ethics which defies the relativism of our culture. This will be a good text book, and a helpful resource. I give this four stars.
Note: I received this book from IVP Academic in exchange for my honest review.


… (altro)