Posted on 07/15/2011 3:14:18 AM PDT by Cronos
An unusually ignorant story in The Atlantic--with a completely misleading headline—questions the religious affiliation of Rep. Michelle Bachman Republican presidential candidate.
Bachman was—but no longer is—a member of a Minnesota Lutheran congregation that belongs to the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. The latter, a theologically conservative group, teaches that the Roman Catholic Church embodies the spirit of Antichrist—although a representative of the group reports that this view is rarely expressed today. Columnist Joshua Green asks whether Catholic voters will find Bachman’s beliefs offensive.
But Bachman herself never professed that belief. When questioned about it, she repudiated it, and said that she regards Catholics as good Christians. Moreover, she has formally withdrawn from the Wisconsin Lutheran parish.
Writing for GetReligion, Mollie Ziegler Hemingway (who is Lutheran) finds it remarkable that Green should be shocked by the beliefs of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. They are Protestants, after all; if they agreed with the Catholic Church they would presumably be Catholics. She argues that the Synod’s official statement shows only that “they’re still Protestants who still don’t believe in the papacy and still think it sits in opposition to the Gospel of Christ.”
Of course, if she were a liberal Democrat, she could have spent 20 years in a church that regularly preached hatred for America, said she "just never heard that stuff," and get a free pass from the press.
You are very much misinformed on that point.
My point is that we cannot let this author have his way and create strife. We have lived this way for a long time and now this Green guy shows up and wants to create trouble.
I happen to be LCMS and do not agree with the papacy BUT that does not mean I believe that Catholics are going to hell. The Bible says, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved", is good enough for me.
I am with you 100 percent.
True. I hope all are mature to see this as just a political ploy and not allow the leftists to divide us
You know, regardless of their devotion to Mary, nobody could love Jesus like my Catholic brothers and not be a Christian.
If anything, perhaps we “evangelicals” tend to over-de-emphasize the role of Jesus’ earthly family in his life, particularly that of His mother.
Mother of God? Perhaps I would rephrase that as “Mother of God’s Son”. But He was God incarnate, so, “Mother of God” is not a stretch.
I used to be very concerned about the Ishtar/Tammuz thing, and the similarities between that religion and Christianity.
But Satan is a masterful counterfeiter. What came first, God’s plan of Salvation through His Son’s Birth to a virgin, Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Ascension, or Satan’s counterfeit Babylon religion?
What about Christmas vs. Saturnalia?
Again, a masterful ploy by Satan to remove the joy of celebration from the Christian.
Consider.
Jesus was crucified on the Passover when He was 33 1/2 years old. Passover occurs on the first full moon after the vernal equinox, sometime in March or April.
If Jesus was 33 1/2 in March or April, then He had to have been born in September or October.
Count backwards nine months from September/October, and you get December/January, which is when He wold have been conceived.
As a Christian, I believe that life starts at conception, therefore, the Advent of Jesus Christ is correctly celebrated in the December/January time frame.
God’s plan for Salvation, which planned also the dates of His advent, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, came long before the Roman feast of Saturnalia.
Now, there remain many doctrines of the Catholic church with which I disagree, but I’m not ready to call the Catholic Church the Whore of Babylon. Good grief!
Why all the different sects and “denominations”? I don’t know. But we are called to Unity, not to Division.
Read 1st Corinthians 1:10-15 and Ephesians chapter 4, the whole chapter.
Differences of opinion must not divide us. Even differences in practice. We can have spirited discussions of these things, but we must not divide over them.
The last thing we need now is acrimony among the brethren.
Almost all protestants are anti-Catholic, other than the Episcopalians, in my experience. It isn’t so much in the theology itself as much as the fact that so many sects are built with heretics with an axe to grind. That said, Bachmann’s stances on social issues mesh pretty well with Catholic theology and I don’t see any evidence where she would push an agenda suppressing the Catholic church. As a Catholic, I am not concerned nor do I care what she thinks about the Catholic church. Judeo-Christian morals are Judeo-Christian moral. It isn’t like she is a Muslim.
I'm still a bit troubled by that similarity, but it is, as you said, a masterful counterfeit, just like the Ishthat thing.
Odin may have hung from a tree, but even the story says that he did this for his own gain, not as a freely given sacrifice
From wikipeda
In Rúnatal, a section of the Hávamál, Odin is attributed with discovering the runes. In a sacrifice to himself, the highest of the gods, he was hung from the world tree Yggdrasil for nine days and nights, pierced by his own spear, in order to learn the wisdom that would give him power in the nine worlds.The counterfeit forgery is diabolical -- well it is from the devil.
This is not an endorsement of any GOP candidate at this time.
Lewis suggests that a lot of the Nordic religion was informed by Xty. The idea of Ragnarok, the Nordic “Dies Irae” is possibly borrowed from us.
I think Justin Martyr has it right. We are made for God. Just by contemplating ourselves we will come up with some, even many, misshapen half-truths. Paganism evidently reeks with myths of the dying Lord of Life.
So I am not greatly perturbed by similarities between “us” and “them”. Anyone who farms or fights, indeed, who has parents and children, will be dealing all the time with the mysteries of life and death. But in our Lord and His Gospel these are disclosed in a way which leads to freedom/responsibility, love and joy.
Except, of course, on the Religion Forum ...
:-)
> The counterfeit forgery is diabolical — well it is from the devil.
As are the divisions among us, my brother.
Bachman was—but no longer is—a member of a Minnesota Lutheran congregation that belongs to the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. The latter, a theologically conservative group, teaches that the Roman Catholic Church embodies the spirit of Antichrist—
Trent.
the main thing is that this is an attempt by the left to get Catholics and Lutherans to fight and they (the left) hope that this will kill Michele's chances.
Their ploy is obvious and even more obvious is the fact (on another thread in the open forum) that this is working. Like fools we take this bait and start fighting when we should remember who is trying to get us to fight -- folks who want us to sit it out while Obambi gets re-elected
I don’t think it matters. Her positions on issues relevant to me as a religious person are satisfactory to me.
I would rather hear the views of Bishops, Archbishops, and Cardinals on this subject.
And I would rather a Michele Bachmann any day over a fruit cake like Nancy Pelosi -- who is CINO -- Catholic in Name Only.
Who cares? Let’s talk about Obama ... the one that wasn’t “vetted” like you are trying to vet Bachman.
I am a member of the WELS church. My husband has been a member since birth, we have 3 ministers in our immediate family. In my 30 years of membership, I have never heard this mentioned. In his 55 years of membership, my husband has never heard it mentioned. Three ministers have never mentioned and did not even know about the statement until they were in seminary.
BTW, the statement doesn't mean what people think it does. Luther considered the pope the antichrist because at that time, the pope was pretty anti- anything that didnt' bring in money for the church.
This statement, while part of the church, does not shape the sermons.
As you said, your husband has not heard this mentioned, let alone preached in 55 years in the WELS church.
So, why is it raised by a leftist author? Does he actually give a whatever about Lutheran or Catholic beliefs and differences? Does he really care about any Christian beliefs? Or did he write this to get folks to fight and "hopefully" not vote Bachmann?
She must be really scaring the left if they are using this ploy -- what is stupid is a lot of us are falling for it -- there's another thread here where the usual crowd have made it into an anti-Catholic thread. So, the left's ploy is working...
Just to to let everybody know, that Martin Luther did write a treatise called “The Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope” and is still part of the Lutheran Confessions in the Book of Concord and therefore still part of the Lutheran Doctrine. However, I have been an LCMS Lutheran all my life and it isn’t discussed much other than in the context of doctrinal differernes we have with all denominations.
Basically we look at the treatiste in the context of the times it was written and the fact Luther had problems with the Church and fact Church was trying to kill him and therfore he look at the Catholic church as the Anti-Christ.
Things have changed in 500 years since the Reformation between Catholics and Lutherans and most Lutherans don’t look at the Pope as the Anti-Christ.
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