07 January 2012

By Raymond Billy | ResonateNews.com

When Michele Bachmann ended her bid for the Republican presidential nomination Wednesday, it marked a swift exist for a candidate who said she felt “that calling and that tugging” from God to seek the office. That statement has been the source of ridicule in some segments of the blogosphere.
After abandoning her campaign, the comments section of abcnews.com's The Note political blog drew several references — all mocking — to Bachmann's claim of divine direction. One person quipped “I guess God does not love her as much as” Iowa caucus winner Mitt Romney. But some Bible teachers who have studied and written about discerning God's will are cautioning that Bachmann — an evangelical Christian and U.S. representative from Minnesota — wasn't necessarily wrong that God wanted her to run for president, even though her campaign ended early.

S. Michael Houdmann, president and founder of Got Questions Ministries — a Colorado Springs, Colo., organization dedicated to advancing biblical literacy and understanding of Christian theology — said Bachmann might already have served the purpose for which she was called to run for president.

“It would be different if she said “God wants me to win,” said Houdmann, who studied theology at Calvary Theological Seminary in Kansas. “Maybe on the campaign trail she had the opportunity to meet someone or minister to someone who she wouldn't have met otherwise.”

Bachmann's departure capped a tumultuous three-month stretch in which her campaign staff for the critical New Hampshire primary resigned en masse, her Iowa campaign co-chairman resigned to endorse rival Ron Paul and pastors there tried to convince her to quit the state's caucus contest to solidify social conservatives behind Rick Santorum. None of those events are reason enough for Bachmann to doubt she heard accurately from God, Houdmann said.

“Maybe a year or two from now, she'll know why God wanted her to run, even though she didn't win,” he said. “Sometimes, we learn more from failure than from success. Maybe she learned something in this process that will be helpful in the future.”

Other Bible scholars suggested God might have prompted Bachmann to run in order to highlight spiritually significant topics that otherwise might not have been brought to the surface. Indeed, Bachmann's campaign brought attention to nonpolitical areas of her life that underscore fealty to biblical morality.

Michele Bachmann and her husband, Marcus, opened their home to 23 foster-care children during an eight-year stretch. And Marcus Bachmann's work in counseling services received significant media attention last summer for offering therapy designed to transition people out of homosexuality.

“Just because” Michele Bachmann “wasn't successful as a presidential candidate doesn't mean she didn't contribute anything valuable to the race or that she didn't raise certain issues that needed to be addressed,” said C. John Steer, senior pastor at Autumn Ridge Church in Rochester, Minn.

But people should be careful before declaring that God told them to do something, Steer said.

“Sometimes we're tempted to say 'God told me to do something' and we're really trying to justify what we, ourselves, have decided to do,” Steer said. “Communication with God is one of the most sacred aspects of the Christian life and we should take it very seriously. We ought not go around ascribing things to him unless we're very certain he has spoken.”

Lenny Esposito, president of Come Reason Ministries, a Riverside, Calif., organization dedicated to Bible teaching, also said people shouldn't whimsically claim to have received divine inspiration.

“You have to be cautious before making that kind of a claim,” said Esposito, who has authored more than 150 articles dealing with matters of faith, Bible doctrine and theology. “I don't know Bachmann personally, so I don't know whether she would say something like that frivolously. But there are some people who say 'God told me this' who are just plain wrong,” he said while noting that Bachmann's campaign failure doesn't mean she wasn't prompted to run by God.

Esposito said there are clues people should heed before determining whether they are truly being led by God. He said God won't tell anyone to do something that contradicts Scripture; God typically won't tell people to do things that are outside of their skill sets or passions; God will answer people's pleas for direction through prayer and Bible reading by pointing them to Scriptures that relate to their inquiries or what he wants them to do; and God will make a clear pathway for people to do things he wants them to do. The difficulties Bachmann faced during her campaign don't mean she misread God's direction — if her purpose was merely to run for president rather than to win the presidency, Esposito said.

Steer — who said he heard the audible voice of God once in his life, telling him to become a pastor — said communication from God is not constant occurrence for anyone. But it also shouldn't be considered unusual.

“Every Christian should expect to hear from God. If Jesus Christ is alive today, then his Spirit is active and I think we ought to be listening carefully for what he has to say,” Steer said. “Christians ought to pray to hear God's voice clearly. Sometimes God wants to communicate with people who are just not tuned in.”

PHOTO BY: Fibonacci Blue.

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