Michele Bachmann officially leaves her church (not extreme enough?)

[sinkingfeeling]

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/07/15/michele-bachmann-officially-leaves-her-church/?hpt=hp_t2

Washington (CNN) - Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann has long been a darling of conservative evangelicals, but shortly before announcing her White House bid, she officially quit a church she’d belonged to for years.

Bachmann, a Minnesota congresswoman, and her husband, Marcus, withdrew their membership from Salem Lutheran Church in Stillwater, Minnesota, last month, according to church officials.

The Bachmanns approached their pastor and verbally made the request “a few weeks before the church council granted the request,” Hochmuth said. He added, “they had not been attending that congregation in over two years. They were still on the books as members, but then the church council acted on their request and released them from membership.”

Becky Rogness, a spokesperson in Bachmann’s congressional office, said the Congresswoman now attends a nondenominational church in the Stillwater area but did not know the name of the church or how long she had been attending

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. If the Wisconsin Synod Lutheran Church is too liberal for them...

:scared:

[DefenseLawyer]

2. The official doctrine of her church is that the Pope is the anti-christ

That apparently doesn't poll well with Catholic primary voters.

[Indykatie]

4. Reverend Wright Pales in Comparison to Some of the Preachers

that Palin, Bachmann and Perry have associated with over the years. It will be interesting to see if the press shows as much interest. I understand that Bachmann also took the unusual step of asking for a formal written release from the church. She must have suspected that her affiliation will be questioned at some point.

[CarmanK]

3. "They hadn't been attending over two years" says Hochmuth!

They were covering their tracks!! Michele is cunning. After all, she speaks directly to GOD, why would she need a church?? She is a phony and a hypocrite and plays her religion like a violin to please her audience.

[Angry Dragon]

5. What would have happened if the church would have refused

to let her out of the contract with god??

'released them from membership'

[damntexdem]

6. No, it's not that it's less extreme -- or more for that matter.

It's that its extremeness is a political liability: it calls the Pope the Anti-Christ.

Of course, with the current Pope, that is a debatable idea -- but it follows on the old tradition of calling ALL Popes the Anti-Christ. And that is just too much of a political liability even for a nutcase like Bachmann.

[jmowreader]

8. You hit it on the head, sir

The GOP went to no small effort to paint Senator Obama as a religious extremist, because of Jeremiah Wright. Obama isn't a religious extremist, but you wouldn't know that from listening to the Republicans.

This creates a problem for the GOP because the top tier of the Republicans contesting to be allowed to run for president really are religious extremists. Bachmann, Pawlenty and Palin came into the race that way, Herman Cain is becoming one, and anyone who wants to be taken seriously for the GOP nomination will have to be one. The problem is, Mr. and Mrs. Average American want their president to have faith but not to be Mullah Omar with a cross. So...all the serious extremists are going to be dumping any detectable ties to fundamentalism before the New Hampshire primary.

[jwirr]

9. All Lutheran Churches are based on those same documents. There

are a lot of Lutherans in the USA - they usually vote. Most other religions do not even know about these historical docs. In fact I would guess that most Lutherans do not even know about most of these docs. It is not as if they are taught to anyone anymore unless you are going to be a preacher or a Lutheran school teacher then you may spend a couple days talking about them. Also there are as many Lutherans who are Democrats as there are that are rethug.

When a Lutheran talks about conservatism they are not talking politics. They are talking religious conservatism regarding theology. It is a whole different thing than the faux evangelicals of today. Many of our churches still have the word evangelical in their name but it has a completely different meaning that the new group of churches.

We still teach love your neighbor as yourself and do onto others as you would have them do unto you. For the most part the church tries to stay out of political issues with the exception of dealing with hunger issues and poverty. Those are still seen as our Christian duty. Nothing like the rw churches.

However, I will tell you that there are occasionally ministers who are fanatic. Our small church got stuck with one how had been marching with Operation Rescue in Texas. He lied to us about it by omission and it took us about six months to catch on. He was fired on the spot. Not because of his theology but because he pulled the church into a political issue. NE MN Lutherans are often very liberal - he brought his Operation Rescue bull up here thinking he could get us to follow him. Stupid move.

It is my understanding that he was run out of his Texas church also for the same reason.

As to the Pope being the anti-christ - if you had been Martin Luther with a price on his head for preaching what he believed would you have thought the Pope was a good guy? I doubt it.

[Contrary1]

7. Make a request to leave their church?

Hell, we just quit going. I sure wouldn't need permission to do so.

:wtf:

[jwirr]

10. They wanted permission to go to another church. The other church

probably required it.