Alex Massie yawns at reports that Bachmann’s Wisconsin Synod Lutheran church adheres to the teachings of Martin Luther:

So, in the end, Michele Bachmann used to be a pretty conservative Lutheran. Which means she’s not a Roman Catholic and her church is not likely to be impressed by the Bishop of Rome. Big deal! Next: Red Sox fans disagree with Yankee fans. Amazing!

Theological differences have much more weight than team loyalties in sports, or at least they are supposed to, but Massie is right that there is nothing particularly incredible or strange that a (theologically) conservative Lutheran church takes the same view of the papacy as Luther. What is supposed to surprise us is that there are contemporary Lutherans who believe this, but I’m not sure why. There are hundreds of millions of contemporary Orthodox who don’t acknowledge the authority of the Pope, and the vast majority of them would reject certain teachings of the Catholic Church as false. Obviously, Orthodox reasons for this are very different from Lutheran ones, and that is part of the reason why we are not in communion with one another, but these reasons are why Orthodox and Lutherans are not in communion with Rome.

As I see it, candidates’ beliefs are fair game. If a candidate speaks publicly about her faith and stresses its importance in shaping and defining who she is, as Bachmann does, it is certainly legitimate to inquire into the substance of what she believes. Then it becomes something whose relevance or significance the voters will have to judge. What is a bit curious is that there seems to be a general consensus among journalists that doctrinal teachings of candidates’ churches should be irrelevant and immaterial when it comes to talking about Romney’s religion, and a different standard is being applied to Bachmann. If Bachmann’s church can be described in some meaningful way as “anti-Catholic,” what would be the description applied to Romney’s church?

Green’s article becomes more interesting and relevant when he reports that Bachmann explicitly denied that her church taught anything of the kind. He quotes her answer from a 2006 debate appearance when she was first running for Congress:

Well that’s a false statement that was made, and I spoke with my pastor earlier today about that as well, and he was absolutely appalled that someone would put that out. It’s abhorrent, it’s religious bigotry. I love Catholics, I’m a Christian, and my church does not believe that the Pope is the Anti-Christ, that’s absolutely false.

What does one make of this? Bachmann made a conventional and not remotely conservative argument that this basic theological disagreement is something abhorrent. I wonder if she really believes that, or if this is the answer she felt compelled to give during an election contest. The assumption behind this reaction is that affirming a major theological difference with another confession must imply hatred or contempt for the people who hold different beliefs. There is always the potential for that, because there is always a temptation inherent in fallen human nature to distort the affirmation of truth into the denigration of other people, but that is the exact opposite of the purpose of such affirmations.