9Marks Ministries exists to equip church leaders with a biblical vision for displaying God's glory through healthy churches.

ENDNOTES:

[1] William P. Young, The Shack (Newbury Park, CA: Windblown Media, 2007), 192.

[2] Berlin's two conceptions bear a clear analogy to what Christian theologians distinguish as libertarian freedom from compatiblist freedom.

[3] Isaiah Berlin, "Two Concepts of Liberty," in Four Essays on Liberty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 196), 122.

[4] Ibid., 131.

[5] Another way to draw out the contrast is to say that negative freedom relies upon a "thin" conception of truth while positive freedom relies upon some "thick" conception of truth. A thin conception aspires to make no claim concerning life's ultimate metaphysical issues, but simply builds its ethics and political philosophy on some type of social contract between humans. Not surprisingly, the credibility of this project has been widely critiqued. A thick conception, on the other hand, explicitly grounds its political philosophy and ethics on a metaphysical foundation.

[6] Berlin says as much about Christianity ("Two Concepts of Liberty," 123 n. 2; 129 n. 2).

[7] Whereas the negative conception of liberty excludes the positive, the positive conception incorporates the negative.

[8] Peter does not explicitly connect freedom and the work of the Spirit as clearly as Jesus and Paul, but it is evident that the same theology of the Spirit undergirds Peter's understanding of sanctification and growth in the Christian (see 1 Pet. 1:2; 2:2, 5; 3:18; 4:14).

[9] A classic example of this occurs in Presbyterian James Bannerman's book in a chapter titled, "The Extent and Limits of Church Power," in which he limits the church's authority (1) to the spiritual domain, as opposed to the state's domain; (2) by the fact that it's derived from Christ's own authority; (3) to that which is prescribed in God's Word; and (4) to the rights of Christian conscience (James Bannerman, The Church of Christ, vol. 2 [Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1974], 247-48.  

[10] Here is where we find the strange convergence between Christian liberalism and fundamentalism. Both often prefer a libertarian conception of freedom which eschews any role for nature and desire. As a result, both tend to do ministry in the same way, only we refer to one as moralistic and the other as legalistic. 

[11] Benjamin Franklin's remarks on how he attempted to cultivate humility by mimicking the phraseology of humility, with no success, are instructive for our day and age when such a high premium is placed upon sounding humble in religious discourse. Franklin writes, "My List of Virtues contain'd at first but twelve: but a Quaker Friend having kindly informed me that I was generally thought proud. . . . I added Humility to my list. . . . I cannot boast of much Success in acquiring the Reality of this Virtue; but I had a good deal with regard to the Appearance of it. . . . I even forbid myself . . . the Use of every Word or Express in the Language that imported a fix'd Opinion; such as certainly, undoubtedly, &c. and I adopted instead of them, I conceive, I apprehend, or I imagine a thing to be so or so, or it so appears to me at present. . . . In reality there is perhaps no one of our natural Passions so hard to subdue as Pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself. . . . For even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my Humility." Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography and Other Writings (New York: Viking Penguin Books, 1984 ed.), 102-3. A writer or church leader exposes a false humility, I apprehend, whenever he appeals to something like post-modernism as what should ground Christian humility. No epistemology produces true humility; only the Spirit does.