Posted on 07/17/2011 9:28:15 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Michele Bachmann’s exit from her longtime church brought to focus the traditional Lutheran doctrine which equates the Roman Catholic Pope with the Antichrist, but the denomination says its views are being misunderstood.
The anti-papal doctrine of Protestant Reformer Martin Luther is “not one of our driving views, and certainly not something that we preach from the pulpit,” a spokesperson of Rep. Michele Bachmann’s former denomination, the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, told Religion News Service.
“As a confessional Lutheran church, we hold to the teachings of Martin Luther who himself maintained the papacy, and in turn the pope, has set himself up in place of Christ, and so is the anti-Christ,” Hochmuth, the director of communications since 2007, said. But, “we love and respect Catholic Christians,” he added.
Hochmuth also said his denomination prayed that the Catholics would recognize that “their church’s official doctrine that the pope is infallible and that no one can be saved outside of the Roman Catholic Church” is an error. But he clarified that Lutherans saw the anti-Christ only as a theological principle, not a “cartoon character with horns.”
On its website, Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod explicitly lays out its doctrine of Antichrist. Giving a historical record of the Statement on the Antichrist, it says, “We reject the idea that the teaching that the Papacy is the Antichrist rests on a merely human interpretation of history or is an open question. We hold rather that this teaching rests on the revelation of God in Scripture which finds its fulfillment in history.”
It goes on to say that Scripture teaches that the Antichrist would be revealed and gives the marks by which the Antichrist is to be recognized; this prophecy has been clearly fulfilled in the history and development of the Roman Papacy. Therefore, “it is Scripture which reveals that the Papacy is the Antichrist.”
However, a disclaimer on the website reads, “As a fellowship of Christians, WELS does not issue statements that all of its members are expected to follow. From time to time, however, we find it necessary to clarify our position on certain issues.” WELS is a group of nearly 400,000 men, women, and children in nearly 1,300 congregations across the U.S. and Canada.
On June 21, the Minnesota Republican and her husband Marcus Bachmann officially left the WELS-affiliated Salem Evangelical Lutheran Church in Stillwater, Minn., where they had been members for over a decade. About week later, the 55-year-old congresswoman announced her candidacy for the White House. Media reports suggest that she left the church because of its anti-Catholic belief which could weaken her chances for the Presidency as there are 70 million Catholics in America.
America’s largest Catholic civil rights organization, the Catholic League, Friday backed Bachmann, saying, “We find no evidence of any bigotry on the part of Rep. Michele Bachmann.”
Bachmann, a supporter of the Tea Party movement, has reportedly been attending an independent church in the Stillwater area in Minnesota.
I’ve got a challenge for protestants on here. When has a Pope ever denied that Jesus came in the flesh? If you ask me this is just bad theology.
HuH?
*snickers* ... how true ...
Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son. -- 1 John 2:21-23
... and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world. -- 1 John 4:3
For many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. -- 2 John 1:7
No Pope fits the bill.
Islam, which says that "Father" and "Son" are blasphemous, meets the qualification of 1 John 2:21-23 perfectly, however. Various Gnostic cults seem to fit the other two best.
Her church asked her to leave.
To open. To known. But then maybe I have watched to many movies.
We are all, to the extent when we sin, anti christ.
Actually, that makes some sense. Do you know why?
Let Michelle Bachmann talk to God.
Calvin attempted to establish a theocracy, virtually the only one attempted in Christianity, and it failed. Some Calvinist-descended church groups (such as our Puritans) also attempted this, and it failed.
Before you go on a campaign of lies, history revisionism, half-truths, slander and gross hypocrisy it helps to first identify yourself as the Enemy of Christianity in the form of being a Roman Catholic - an organization that never tried to establish any sort of theocratic rule. </sarc>
I'm sure that it frustrates you to no end that the Founding Fathers of this country were largely Calvinists and thus the greatest nation to ever exist was not Catholic in its founding, but Calvinistic. Your pals were busy executing and torturing those who did not kiss the Papal ring. Wasn't it your group that wanted to murder Luther because he believed the Bible and led others to do the same?
The Roman Catholic Cartel had its place in maintaining order following the collapse of the Roman Empire, and for that civilization can be glad, but the Church became as corrupt and power mad as the Empire it replaced. It got greedy and powerful as the Church owned vasts amounts of property and wealth, and thus was a prime target of the French Revolution since the corruption of the RCC was well tied to the Royalty.
So in comparison, Roman Catholicism led to brutality, death, carnage and dismay in the form of Crusades, Inquisitions and finally the French Revolution where Calvinism led to the greatest nation ever to exist on the planet. I think its pretty clear which system is better.
[For those who want to understand Calvin's idea of a Christian's relationship to civil government, you don't have to resort to this poster's lies, for Calvin wrote down his ideas in Book 4, Chapter 20 of "Institutes".]
I’m ashamed at those oversensitive Catholics who got all upset about this.
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I’m ashamed at those oversensitive Catholics who got all upset about this AND gave Romney a ‘pass’ on the exact same thing.
A WELS Lutheran can not pray (upon risk of excommunication) with any other Christian.
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This is the first I head about this one. We live next door to an LCMS church (we bought the old parsonage) and we were shocked when the former Lutheran minister there told us we were not Christians because we were not Lutheran but Evangelicals.
That said, most of our congregation at least, and most of the WELS I know in my area, wouldn’t think twice about considering us Christians or praying with us. So, I am wondering, how many Lutherans don’t know that their church teaches this?
Well, this oversensitive Catholic thinks that Romney’s pro-abort and pro-homosexual “marriage” history make him a non-starter. He doesn’t even get far enough for his Mormonism to come into play.
“As a confessional Lutheran church, we hold to the teachings of Martin Luther who himself maintained the papacy, and in turn the pope, has set himself up in place of Christ, and so is the anti-Christ,” Hochmuth, the director of communications since 2007, said. But, “we love and respect Catholic Christians,” he added.
A confessional Lutheran church holds to the Book of Concord, not to the "teachings of Martin Luther." In fact, it was Melanchthon, normally willing to give things up for conciliation, who wrote the Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope.
If Bachmann were a confessional Lutheran, she would have joined another Lutheran church, which still holds to the Lutheran Confessions (including that the office of the Papacy is antichrist). So it's a moot point what WELS teaches.
My point was, on a similar thread the original poster claimed that Bachmann should not be given a ‘pass’ for this and then went on to pimp Romney.
The Mormon church has always been a lot more Anti-Catholic than WELS ever was.
And both Romeny’s record and his religion are issues for me. I don’t like him because of his record, I don’t TRUST him because of his religion. I know too much about it (see tagline).
“Odd that there is media interest in the details of the church a presidential candidate used to attend. There certainly wasn’t in 2008.”
...or by some of those who profess Christ?? Wonder what they were thinking in 2008....????
RE: I’ve got a challenge for protestants on here
There are millions of protestants, which ones are you issuing this challenge to? It seems you need to narrow down your audience.
RE: Her church asked her to leave.
Could you kindly cite your reliable source for this?
The Catholic vote was very instrumental in Obama’s election, disturbingly so.
Roman Catholics certainly know how all other Christian denominations view the Roman Catholic religion. That is not in the least bit important to Roman Catholics. What is important to a Roman Catholic, is how the Roman Catholic Church views each of those denominations.
Michele Bachmann need not worry about losing any Roman Catholic votes due to this church she attended. We only hope Michele Bachmann comes home.
“This is all being brought up to distance Catholics from Michele Bachmann.”
Yellow Journalism.
True. All I’m saying is that the WELS needs to look more into it’s history, in IMO.
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