On Feb. 16, famous pastor and popular Christian author Rick Warren issued an apology and retracted his post from five days earlier that had generated a firestorm of controversy. Warren admitted that he “wrote poorly” when he cited Jesus being crucified “in the middle” between two thieves in John 19:18 as meaning that “If you’re looking for the real Jesus, not a caricature disfigured by partisan motivations, you’ll find him in the middle, not on either side.”

I apologize. 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.
— Rick Warren (@RickWarren) February 16, 2025

The original post generated an avalanche of criticism, including my take here. I pointed out that the two “thieves” were likely violent revolutionaries who held the same position, not two different sets of political views; and that Jesus was not a “middle” kind of guy, certainly not on sexual ethics or abortion, so that there was no basis for using this scripture text to argue that Jesus would hold the middle political position between the Democratic and Republican Parties. (READ MORE: No, Rick Warren, Jesus Crucified Between Two ‘Bandits’ Doesn’t Mean He’s in the Middle)
With all due respect, Warren’s apology still does not appear to get it. Here is my response to Rev. Warren:
Thank you for your apology and for retracting the original post, even if it took five days to do so and only after an avalanche of criticism.
But the issue wasn’t just that you presented Jesus as “in the middle” between two political parties when in fact “he stands far above it all.” Nor was anyone claiming that you were saying that Jesus should not be “the center of our lives.”
The real problem, which you don’t address in your mea culpa was that you made an exegetically indefensible claim about Scripture in order to claim divine authority for a politically indefensible position that the Dem...