Wolves Among the Sheep > Is Rick Warren losing it? Is it time to retire?

 

Last year I called for the retirement of Archbishop Justin Welby three times before he finally stepped down after being out of touch with reality. Today, I'm calling for Rick Warren to step down after a dreadfully poor analogy of Christ on the Cross is liable to lead his flock astray.

Rick Warren's political interpretation of Crucifixion draws Christians' ire: 'Embarrassing'

By Jon Brown, Christian Post Reporter Wednesday, February 12, 2025

Rick Warren, founder and former pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., appeals the removal of the church from the Southern Baptist Convention during an afternoon session of the SBC annual meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana, on June 13, 2023. | Flickr/Baptist Press/Sonya Singh

Saddleback Church founder and former senior pastor Rick Warren drew scorn on social media for implying that Jesus Christ would be a political centrist today because He was crucified between two thieves.

"'They crucified Jesus with two others — one on each side & Jesus in the middle," Warren tweeted Tuesday, quoting John 19:18. "The guys on both sides were thieves. 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."

John 19:18 “They crucified Jesus with two others-one on each side & Jesus in the middle.”

The guys on both sides were thieves.

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. pic.twitter.com/wYmLyayqsZ

— Rick Warren (@RickWarren) February 11, 2025

Several prominent Christian voices on X took the bestselling author of The Purpose Driven Life to task for what they deemed a questionable application of the biblical text.

"If you’re going to misuse the story this bad, you should also point out that the thief on the Right is the one that went to heaven lol," tweeted Babylon Bee managing editor Joel Berry.

Justin Peters, who heads a worldwide expository preaching and teaching ministry, rebuked Warren for what he characterized as sloppy biblical interpretation.

"This is, sadly, typical of Rick Warren's approach to scripture," wrote Peters. "This would have been laughed out of biblical hermeneutics on day 1. Basic hermeneutics dictates that you strive for authorial intent, and this is definitively NOT the point the author was making. This is not only embarrassing, it is inexcusable."

Others accused Warren of exhibiting the lukewarmness that Jesus warned against.

"Your Jesus sounds more like a lukewarm moderate in your own image," tweeted Aaron Edwards, a theology lecturer at Cliff College in Derbyshire, England, who was terminated in 2023 after he tweeted in opposition to homosexuality.

Ryan Visconti, pastor of the Arizona-based Generation Church, suggested Warren's call for political moderation among American Christians has become antiquated and effectively impossible given what much of the Left supports today.

"How would one be 'in the middle' on abortion, mutilating kid’s genitals, homosexuality, open borders, DEI, CRT, etc? There’s no middle ground between evil and righteousness. You’re wrong, Pastor Rick. Your approach made sense in 1990, but not today," he wrote.

Author and podcast host Eric Metaxas echoed Visconti's sentiment, calling Warren's tweet "misleading posturing."

"What does it even mean? Shall we be 'in the middle' when it comes to standing against killing babies or mutilating kids or corruption in our own govt? There is a time to be bold as lions against evil! That's not 'partisan.' It's the Lord's will," he wrote.

Attorney Jenna Ellis tweeted that Warren should "be embarrassed to call yourself a pastor."

"Jesus is not a moderate or 'in the middle' when it comes to truth. To characterize him as such simply because of the placement of his cross is perverting an historical fact into a symbolic meaning to serve your own ideological agenda," she added.

"It's so bad my jaw is on floor," author and Daily Wire reporter Megan Basham wrote in response to Ellis' tweet.

Basham, who has written extensively about the infiltration of left-wing financial interests in the American church, also suggested that Warren's widespread influence in the Evangelical world might have contributed to its present theological weakness.

"The fact that this is the pastor from whom millions of Americans found spiritual guidance for years explains a lot about the state of our theology," she wrote.

"With every post, Rick Warren proves the wisdom of Southern Baptists in kicking him out," wrote William Wolfe, who serves as executive director at the Center for Baptist Leadership.

In 2023, the Southern Baptist Convention upheld the removal of Saddleback Church from the denomination for permitting a woman to serve in the office of teaching pastor, despite an impassioned plea from Warren.

A website devoted to Warren's bestselling book touts him as "America's most influential spiritual leader," and notes how he "is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Pacific Council on International Policy," and has delivered addresses to international bodies such as the World Economic Forum.

Perhaps he should convert to Catholicism, he should get along well with the Pope.

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Is Europe Lurching to the Far Right?

Katya Adler, Europe editor, BBC


A banner of Austrian presidential candidate Norbert Hofer is covered with snow in Gnadenwald, Austria, April 27, 2016. Reuters

Extreme conditions - what explains the rise of right-wing populism in Europe, such as the success of Norbert Hofer in Austria?

A ripple of concern shivered across Europe this week in establishment circles after a right-wing populist candidate stormed to pole position in the first round of Austria's presidential election.

"Triumph for the extreme right," proclaimed Spain's El Pais newspaper. Britain's Guardian warned of "turmoil" ahead. Italy's Corriere della Sera bemoaned a victory for the "anti-immigrant far right" while Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung called on traditional political parties to "listen to this wake-up call!"

"The extreme right" - A bit hysterical, don't you think?

Most publications identified some link between Norbert Hofer's strong showing and Austria's centre-stage role in the EU's migrant crisis.

"In Austria, European governments see a mirror of their own future. Social tensions are rising," noted another editorial predicting the rise of Europe's far right. But this writer wasn't talking about Sunday's vote.

Trotskyist journalist Peter Schwarz penned his thoughts 16 years ago, back in February 2000, when the Freedom Party (FPOe) first joined an Austrian government.

At the time, the party's charismatic and controversial leader, Joerg Haider, had provoked condemnation at home and abroad with his praise for Hitler's Waffen SS, with his strong anti-immigrant stance and Eurosceptic views.


Thousands of demonstrators with banners and flags on their way to Heldenplatz on 19 February 2000 for a demonstration against the new Austrian coalition government between Joerg Haider's right-wing Freedom Party and the conservative Peoples Party, AP

The rise of Joerg Haider's Freedom Party in Austria 16 years ago prompted outrage - now there is little more than a raised eyebrow.

I was living in Vienna then and reported from amongst the tens of thousands of anti-Haider protesters chanting "Never again!" in Heldenplatz - the emblematic square in central Vienna where Hitler chose to celebrate the annexation of Austria in 1938.

Europe was appalled at the inclusion of the Freedom Party in government. For the first time in EU history, all other members imposed sanctions on one of their own.

Diplomatic relations with Vienna were frozen. Austria was ostracised.

Then. But not now.

Now European eyebrows are raised, but little more than that.



Austria is hardly a novelty these days. Resurgent right-wing populist groupings shout anti-immigration and Eurosceptic slogans across much of the EU.

They find acclaim amongst large chunks of the electorate in Italy, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Greece, France and the Netherlands, for example.

So does this mean that Europe is veering to the far right? I would argue not.

A number of these political parties existed and enjoyed some popularity back in 2000 - such as the Danish People's Party, Italy's Northern League and France's National Front.

But what is very different now is that right-wing populists' bread-and-butter issues have become mainstream, (because of negligence by the governments of the day).

Socially acceptable

This, following a toxic shock to the European public - made up of the current migrant crisis and the 2008 economic downturn which fuelled the euro crisis.

Questioning (while not always decrying) immigration, integration, the euro, the EU and the establishment, while promoting a stiff dose of nationalist sentiment, is now entirely "salonfaehig", as German-speakers would say.

This literally means "passable for your living room", or socially acceptable.

And something else has been spreading throughout Europe.

Dissatisfaction, cynicism and outright rejection of traditional political parties (as well as business and banking elites), many of which have been in power in Western Europe in one way or another since the end of the World War Two.

This, and not far-right fervour, is arguably driving voters to stage ballot-box protests or to seek alternative political homes - to the delight of Europe's populist parties.



Greece's Neo-Nazi Golden Dawn cannot be lumped with Britain's anti-establishment UKIP, AFP

But they vary enormously in their political make-up from far left, to far right, to right-wing populist. They have different values and objectives.

Neo-Nazi Golden Dawn in Greece cannot be put in the same political basket as anti-establishment UKIP, which campaigns for the UK to leave the EU.

Lumping these parties together as evidence of the rise of the far right is simply incorrect.

We also do not know if Mr Hofer will be voted Austria's president after a second ballot next month.

France's National Front has often flopped at the last hurdle in presidential and regional elections.

More accurate than a warning "to heed a wake-up call on the far right's march across Europe" would be to heed a wake-up call that Europe and many of its citizens are floundering and trying to find a voice.

Right-wing nationalism in Europe - a snapshot


Protesters trample a burnt European Union flag during a demonstration entitled 'To be members, or to be free?' and called by the right-wing parliamentary party 'Jobbik' against European Union in front of the European Union Parliament and Committee headquarters in downtown Budapest on January 14, AFP

In Austria, for the first time since World War Two neither of Austria's two main centrist parties made it to the presidential run-off

Denmark's government relies on the support of the nationalist Danish People's Party and has the toughest immigration rules in Europe

The leader of the nationalist Finns Party is foreign minister of Finland, after it joined a coalition government last year

In France, the far-right National Front won 6.8 million votes in regional elections in 2015 - its largest ever score

The far-right Jobbik party - polling third in Hungary - organises patrols by an unarmed but uniformed "Hungarian Guard" in Roma (Gypsy) neighbourhoods

Perspective 

There is the matter of perspective here that Katya has not addressed. Aside from the neo-nazi types, other far-right wing parties may appear to be extreme only because they contrast so greatly with the left wing governments that have been in place in much of Europe for many decades. From a right-wing perspective, some of them might be seen as 'far-left' governments.

From a 'centrist' position, most right-wing parties are not extreme, or even that 'far' right. Current governments, however, see themselves as 'the norm' or 'centrist', when that is clearly not the case.