Posted on 07/15/2011 3:14:18 AM PDT by Cronos
An unusually ignorant story in The Atlantic--with a completely misleading headlinequestions the religious affiliation of Rep. Michelle Bachman Republican presidential candidate.
Bachman wasbut no longer isa 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 Antichristalthough a representative of the group reports that this view is rarely expressed today. Columnist Joshua Green asks whether Catholic voters will find Bachmans 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 Moreover, she has formally withdrawn from the Wisconsin Lutheran parish.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 Synods official statement shows only that theyre still Protestants who still dont believe in the papacy and still think it sits in opposition to the Gospel of Christ.
Odd that anyone should not know that Lutherans generally accept the opinions of Luther, which are no secret to anyone who care to read them. Not many, so far as I know, express their rejection of the papacy with the same venom as Luther himself did.
Christianity took on the coloration of German culture as it took the Gospel to the Germans. In fact it was one reason for the Reformation was the cultural gap between Germany and Italy. That is one reason why Trent was chosen as the site of the Council: it was “neutral ground.”
Not a question of which is more offensive. This sickening, insulting belief that my Faith is satanic won’t fly with me. Catholics do NOT follow the anti-Christ regardless of what these hate mongers officially believe or not.
You have been grossly misled. The “similarities” to pagan religions were invented by 19th and 20th century atheists looking to hurt Christianity.
You must have mistaken me for someone else.
Please re-read my post in http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2748879/posts?page=26#26
I agree with you.
Among his other “talents”, Satan is a counterfeiter.
I do not believe your Faith is satanic.
I do not believe that Michelle Bachman believes this, either.
Luther and his spiritual descendants may have believed that, but you’ve got to admit they had good reason to be afraid of the popes existing at that time.
Jesus never killed anybody. He left it to people’s own conscience whether to believe. Certainly, judgement would come soon enough to the unrepentant.
It is not for men to take other men’s lives simply because they disagree on doctrine. Yet, this is what both Catholic and Protestant churches did. The Anabaptists got the worst of it from both sides.
Martin Luther himself wrote some hateful and despicable things about the Jews.
Zwingli, a “Protestant”, burned “heretics” alive, just like the “Romish” oppressors he so despised.
It’s extremely unlikely that anybody who participated remorselessly in such cruel and brutal savagery could know the Lord Jesus. It does not matter under which rubric such crimes were committed.
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