Bachmann left church at pastor’s request, official says
The conservative church that Michele Bachmann officially left
days before launching her presidential campaign said Friday that the
Minnesota congresswoman’s decision came at their request.
“The impetus came from the church,” said Joel Hochmuth, a
spokesman for the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, the
denominational organization that includes the church. “For the pastor’s
sake, he wanted to know where he stood with the family.”
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Bachmann (R) had stopped attending Salem Evangelical Lutheran
Church two years ago but did not formally end her membership until June
21, a date first
reported by CNN.
The timing raised questions because it came shortly before she formally
kicked off her presidential campaign in Waterloo, Iowa, and because the
church has taken controversial stands on Catholicism and homosexuality.
Candidates
have often come under fire for the religious company they keep. During
the 2008 presidential election, Barack Obama was forced to disavow his
affiliation with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright after videos emerged of
Wright’s more controversial sermons, which included statements critical
of the United States and what many considered to be slurs against white
people.
A spokeswoman for Bachmann’s congressional office said
she now attends a non-denominational church in the Stillwater, Minn.,
area but declined to specify which one.
“As the family’s schedule
has allowed, they have attended their current church throughout the past
two years,” spokeswoman Becky Rogness said in an e-mail.
The
Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod is a conservative branch of
Lutheranism that has about 390,000 adherents across the country. It has
been criticized in part because it holds that the Catholic pope is the
Antichrist. Bachmann has said emphatically that she does not share that view, and church officials recently told the Atlantic that it
is not a central tenet of the faith.
The synod — a term Hochmuth defined as “a fellowship of
congregations that hold to the same beliefs and doctrines” — also
believes that homosexuality is a sin and can be changed.
Bachmann’s husband, Marcus Bachmann, has recently
come under fire
over his Christian-based counseling center’s treatment of gay clients.
Several recent reports say the center practices “reparative therapy,”
which seeks to “cure” gays and lesbians of their homosexuality.
On Thursday, Marcus Bachmann acknowledged
in an interview with the Star-Tribune of Minneapolis
that counselors at Bachmann and Associates do treat homosexuals who
seek to become heterosexual, but that it is not the clinic’s main focus,
and “we don’t have an agenda or a philosophy of trying to change
someone.”
Michele Bachmann stopped attending services at the Salem
Evangelical Lutheran Church after she moved to a different part of
town, according to media reports. Around the time that her campaign for
president geared up this spring, the Rev. Marcus Birkholz asked that she
make clear her relationship with the church, Hochmuth said.
The
Bachmanns then asked the church council that they be removed from the
membership ranks — a request that is not required of a person that
leaves the church, but assists with recordkeeping and helps the church
ensure that “you’re in the spiritual care of someone else,” Hochmuth
said. “In other words, we would want to know if you are being ‘fed the
word,’ as we say.”
Bachmann did not specify to which church she was moving, Hochmuth said.
