By Eric Marrapodi, CNN Belief Blog Co-Editor
Washington (CNN) - Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann has long been a darling of conservative evangelicals, but shortly before announcing her White House bid she officially quit a church she'd belonged to for years.
Bachmann, a Minnesota congresswoman, and her husband Marcus withdrew their membership from Salem Lutheran Church in Stillwater, Minnesota last month, according to church officials.
The BachmannsĀ had been members of the church for more than 10 years, according to Joel Hochmuth, director of communications for the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, the broader denominational body of which Bachmann's former church is a member.
The church council granted the Bachmanns' request to be released from their membership on June 21st, Hochmuth said.
After declaring at the CNN/WMUR/New Hampshire Union Leader presidential debate that she would seek the nomination, Bachmann formally announced her presidential bid June 27th in Waterloo, Iowa.
The Bachmanns' approached their pastor and verbally made the request, "a few weeks before the church council granted the request,"¯ Hochmuth said. He added, "they had not been attending that congregation in over two years. They were still on the books as members but then the church council acted on their request and released them from membership."¯
Bachmann had listed her membership in the church on her campaign site for congress in 2006. She lists no church affiliation on her campaign website or her official congressional website.
Hochmuth said a change in membership is not out of the ordinary. "You have people who are on the books as members, but they may have gone on to another church, they may not be attending a church anywhere. There's all sorts of circumstances."¯
A similar request for membership is to transfer membership from one church to another within the denomination. But that was not the case with the Bachmanns, according to Hochmuth, who said to his knowledge the couple was no longer attending a church within the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod.
Pastor Marcus Birkholz has been at the helm of Salem Lutheran Church for nearly three decades. When asked about the Bachmanns' leaving the church he said, "I've been asked to make no comments regarding them and their family."¯
Bachmann was asked about her status with the church on Thursday at Reagan National Airport as she headed to catch a flight. When asked about her pastor, she asked, "Which one?"¯ An aide quickly hustled her away, noting they were late for a flight.
The Bachmann campaign declined to immediately respond to a request for further comment on Friday.
Hochmuth said that, "My understanding of the situation was the timing of the request for release was far more coincidental than strategic."¯
Salem Lutheran Church still maintains some ties with the Bachmann family. It lists a Christian counseling center operated by Bachmann's husband on its website under special member services for confidential counseling.
Hochmuth said there are no formal ties between the counseling center and the denomination, but added that it is not uncommon for churches to link off to members' websites as in this case.
Bachmann and Associates has faced accusations that it uses a controversial therapy that encourages gay and lesbian patients to change their sexual orientation.
In an interview with the Minnesota Star Tribune published Friday, Marcus Bachmann did not deny that he or other counselors at his clinic used the technique, but said they only did so at the request of a patient.
"Is it a remedy form that I typically would use?"¯ he said. ""¦ It is at the client's discretion."
Salem Lutheran Church has around 800 members and holds three services each weekend. The Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod is often referred to as theologically conservative. The denomination opposes same-sex marriage and abortion, both positions Bachmann has long endorsed politically.
The denomination has approximately 390,000 members in 48 states and 1,300 congregations in the United States and Canada.
Presidential candidates' affiliation with churches and pastors played a dramatic role in the 2008 campaign for president.
Then-candidate Barack Obama resigned from his Chicago church in May 2008 after videos surfaced of his longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, delivering fiery sermons that criticized certain U.S. policies.
In the speeches, Wright suggested that the U.S. government may be responsible for the spread of AIDS in the black community and equated some American wartime activities to terrorism.
Wright officiated the Obama's wedding, baptized his children, and the Obama's were members at Wright's church for years. After a sustained attention on Wright, Mr. Obama distanced himself from his former pastor.
During the same election cycle, Republican presidential nominee John McCain rejected endorsements from two prominent pastors, John Hagee and Rod Parsley, for controversial statements from the pastors' pasts.
"We're in a state of crisis where our nation is literally ripping apart at the seams right now, and lawlessness is occurring from one ocean to the other. And we're seeing the fulfillment of the Book of Judges here in our own time, where every man doing that which is right in his own eyes"”in other words, anarchy."¯ "“ Senator Michele Bachmann, appearing as guest on radio program "Prophetic Views Behind The News"¯, hosted by Jan Markell, KKMS 980-AM, March 6, 2004.
they forgot to mention that bachmann's former church was anti-catholic and publicly denounced the papacy as "the anti-christ."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/14/bachmanns-former-church_n_899353.html
Still cannot get past her Darth Vader hair. lol
Interesting, have to question her motives in leaving and then making it "public"...more reason to distrust her.
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