An aide with Michele Bachmann’s presidential campaign tells The Brody File that “preference issues” led to the congresswoman’s decision to officially leave her Lutheran church last month.
The aide, who asked not to be identified, says her husband, Marcus Bachmann ran into the pastor from Salem Lutheran Church at an event last month. During the coincidental encounter, the pastor inquired about how he had not seen the Bachmann family at church for a good period of time.
Marcus Bachmann explained that they were attending a non-denominational evangelical church the last few years. During the conversation, he told him it would be best for them to no longer be members. Thus, it turns out Bachmann didn’t seek the pastor out. Rather this was a chance meeting.
The aide explains it this way:
“The family began seeking out a new church a little over two years ago, just after they moved. It really came down to preference issues, as it does for so many evangelical families who occasionally change churches. They have been attending a non-denominational evangelical church during that time. They haven't been at Salem in just over two years. A coincidental meeting with Salem's pastor last month afforded an opportunity to provide the membership release.”
The church, part of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod has come under fire from some Catholics because it views the institution of the papacy as the Antichrist.
Bachmann has repeatedly said she does not hold those views. The aide wouldn’t speculate on if the antichrist position played into her decision to leave the church.
On a separate but related not, while I am not a theologian let me clarify the Antichrist viewpoint to a degree.
There are two common views of the antichrist. Some Christians believe that the antichrist is a particular, Satan-driven end-times person. This is not the view of the Wisconsin Synod Lutherans. They hold to Luther's 500-year-old view that when the office of the papacy functions in the place of Christ (speaking for God or acting as a mediator that only Christ can be), then it is against Christ.
It’s more of a theological view of the anti-Christ.