Bachmann Left Her Lutheran Church Last Month; May Have Done So Fearing Loss of Catholic Votes

The Ethics Daily website reports today (July 16, 2011) that the Lutheran denomination that presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann quit in June -- just six days before she formally announced she is a candidate for U.S. president -- sought to explain its belief that the papacy is the anti-Christ, after reports questioned whether Bachmann is anti-Catholic.

The denomination says on its website: "We identify the anti-Christ as the papacy. This is an historical judgment based on Scripture."

On July 14, Lutheran Synod spokesman Joel Hochmuth said, "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 added, "We love and respect Catholic Christians... Yet we pray that they would come to see the errors of their church's official doctrine that the pope is infallible and that no one can be saved outside of the Roman Catholic Church."

Martin Luther was a 16th century Catholic priest in Germany who vehemently protested the Catholic policy of selling indulgences; that is, Catholics would pay the Church, so that the Church would lessen the amount of time a loved one would spend in purgatory, thus speeding up the loved one's entry to Heaven. Luther's protests spread like wildfire in much of Western Europe, and resulted in the establishment of Protestantism and the Reformation in 1517.