As candidates run for office, some run from their church

WASHINGTON (RNS)—On a recent Sunday, Rep. Michele Bachmann offered a Pentecostal church in Iowa an intimate account of her pilgrimage from apathetic teenager to devout Christian whose faith has persevered through hardship, including a miscarriage.

But when a reporter asked about the churches her family has attended, the Republican presidential candidate went mum.

"We're not here to talk about anything other than just the church. Thank you," Bachmann, said, referring to Des Moines First Assembly of God, where she recited her spiritual testimony before 500 fellow Christians—and potential caucus voters.

The Minnesota congresswoman's eagerness to bare her soul but not the site of her Sunday worship seems to reflect a convergence of wider concerns—evangelicals' increasing aversion to religious labels, a dread of being caught with "pastor problems," and the cold political calculus of reaching the largest possible constituency.

"Today, more evangelicals prefer a broader religious identity," said Michael Lindsay, president of Gordon College in Wenham, Mass. "Not one that is tethered to a particular denominational hierarchy, but rather one that stresses a personal relationship with Jesus and an active, vibrant faith."

Carrying the baggage of a Christian denomination—and more than a few have ecclesiastical skeletons in their closet—could also make it difficult to build political alliances across religious lines, added Lindsay, author of Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite.

But it is crucial that candidates like Bachmann, who has placed her faith at the center of her campaign, are questioned about how and where that faith was formed, said Diane Winston, an expert on religion and the media at the University of Southern California.

"Since Michele Bachmann presents her religious beliefs as fundamental to her campaign, she opens them for public scrutiny," Winston said. "What she believes, where she goes to church and how she expresses her faith are all part of the public's right to know."

Bachmann caught a glimpse of the political difficulties denominations can present in 2006, when she was questioned about the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod and its centuries-old belief that the papacy is the Antichrist.

Later, as her political profile increased, Bachmann and her family joined Eagle Brook in suburban Minneapolis, an evangelical church affiliated with the Baptist General Conference. Bachmann officially left her Lutheran congregation June 21, six days before she launched her presidential campaign.

An aide told the Christian Broadcasting Network the Bachmanns' decision to leave "came down to preference issues, as it does for so many evangelical families who occasionally change churches." Her campaign has not responded to repeated requests for comment.

Of course, Bachmann is not the first politician to change churches as her political star began to rise.

Dwight D. Eisenhower buried his family's roots as Jehovah's Witnesses and presented himself as a Presbyterian when he ran for president in the 1950s, according to Mark Silk, an expert on religion and politics at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.

Eisenhower was concerned that Jehovah's Witness injunctions against saluting the flag and armed military service would brand the candidate as anti-American, scholars say, even though Eisenhower was a five-star general.

More recently, Barack Obama quit Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ just before clinching the Democratic nomination in 2008, following months of controversy over the inflammatory rhetoric of his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright Jr.

That same year, former Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin refused the label of "Pentecostal," even though she was baptized in an Assembly of God church and worshipped there for decades. Instead, Palin defined herself broadly as a "Bible-believing Christian" who attends a nondenominational Bible church.

Lindsay said many successful evangelicals—particularly politicians—migrate from "spicy" religious traditions like Pentecostal-ism, where speaking in tongues and prayer healings are common, to more "vanilla" expressions of faith.

"They want to cultivate that cosmopolitan sensibility, so they are very careful about the churches they are associated with," he said.