Rick Warren, former pastor of California’s famed Saddleback Church, managed to ruffle quite a few feathers this month with a tweet that tried to turn Jesus Christ’s crucifixion into a lesson about political centrism. The tweet racked up over three million views before Warren hit the delete button, as religious leaders and commentators took him to task.
On February 11, Warren dropped this gem: “If you’re looking for the #realJesus, not a caricature disfigured by partisan motivations, you’ll find him in the middle, not on either side.” Apparently, he thought Jesus’ physical placement between two thieves during the Crucifixion had something to say about today’s political landscape.
The controversy comes less than a year after Saddleback Church, which Warren founded in 1980, was removed from the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). The removal stemmed from the church’s decision to appoint Stacie Wood, wife of new lead pastor Andy Wood, to a teaching pastor position – a move that contradicted the SBC’s stance on women in pastoral roles.
After watching his tweet cause a stir, Warren finally walked it back on Sunday. “I apologize,” he posted. “I wrote poorly. I don’t believe Jesus was a centrist. He stands far above it all. ‘My kingdom is not of this world…’ Jn. 18:36 Jesus demands our total allegiance as the center of our lives.”
Sean Davis, CEO and Co-Founder of “The Federalist” offered a wonderful response that sums up Warren’s true intent:
The problem was not what you wrote, which you well know. You communicated exactly what you intended to communicate, which was a condemnation of conservative Christians who rightfully understand that God condemns and prohibits abortion, trans ideology, and the chemical and surgical mutilation of children.
You very clearly confessed your true idol—a desire to be loved by the world and especially its elite cultural tastemakers—when you twisted the crucifixion of Christ and the story of the thief who was saved through repentance of sin and acknowledgment of Christ as the Messiah into a hackneyed “both sides’ modern-day political fable.
Now, rather than be honest about what you were doing, you’re transitioning from mealy-mouthed ‘Jesus is a centrist/both sides are icky’ nonsense to ‘akshully Jesus is above it all/both sides are icky’ nonsense. And it’s being done to bully and nudge faithful Christians on the right (nobody on the Left cares what you say about anything unless it can be weaponized against the Right, which you fully understand) into wrongfully believing that they’re sinful for being politically active.
We all see what you’re doing, and we’re not having any of it anymore.
Yuck. And to think Warren was once the figurehead of the contemporary church model.
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