At least I know who Paul Revere was
Hey, remember when Obama had the crazy pastor, the guy who was really
black and
crazy and stuff? Good times. That pastor should have been a conservative, because religious conservatives can get away with crazy things like hunting for witchcraft in Africa, booting out gay demons and
all sorts of other fun.
Michele Bachmann is practically synonymous with political controversy, and if the 2008 presidential election is any guide, the conservative Lutheran church she belonged to for many years is likely to add another chapter due to the nature of its beliefs--such as its assertion, explained and footnoted on this website, that the Roman Catholic Pope is the Antichrist.
Bachmann was a longtime member of the Salem Evangelical Lutheran Church in Stillwater, Minn., which belongs to the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS), a council of churches founded in 1850 that today comprises about 400,000 people. WELS is the most conservative of the major Lutheran church organizations, known for its strict adherence to the writings of Martin Luther, the German theologian who broke with the Catholic Church and launched the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century. This includes endorsing Luther's statements about the papacy. From the WELS "Doctrinal Statement on the Antichrist":
Since Scripture teaches that the Antichrist would be revealed and gives the marks by which the Antichrist is to be recognized, and since this prophecy has been clearly fulfilled in the history and development of the Roman Papacy, it is Scripture which reveals that the Papacy is the Antichrist.
I suppose it's not exactly a surprise that Bachmann treats her religion like she treats her politics, and seeks out the most conservative possible branch of both. A branch of Lutherism that explicitly writes down, as part of its guiding "doctrines," that the Pope is the Antichrist? Meh: welcome to the conservative right. The Antichrist is everywhere, from Rome to your neighbor's crabgrass to the latest rap songs that these kids today listen to with their loud music and ... wait, what was I talking about? Oh, right.
For her part, Bachmann left the WELS at least a year ago, and has denied that her church thinks the Pope is, in fact, the Antichrist, so there ya go. I'm sure that now that it's 2011, all the Republican candidates are in firm agreement that it would be unfair to brand candidates with every little crazy thing their pastors or religious factions said.