Sarah Posner says “it’s complicated” and that the media can’t get it right. In a post at Religion Dispatches, Posner points out the multiple influences on Bachmann’s worldview, including the Wisconsin Synod denomination to which she used to belong. But there are many more influences:

But Bachmann is more of a mishmash: a Lutheran moved by Francis Schaeffer to get involved in conservative politics, who attended a law school founded by a Pentecostal and a Christian Reconstructionist; an alumna of the “Christian worldview” education that teaches that Christianity is on a collision course with other “worldviews,” including secularism, Islam, and post-modernism; an anti-public school activist who homeschooled her own children; an anti-gay rights activist; and now, a crusader against the “tyranny” of “big government” and “socialism.” She’s a product of all of those strands of church, political activism, and “worldview” training; she’s like a crucible of the religious right zeitgeist. And that’s why an ex-Lutheran-turned-we’re-not-sure-what can speak at an Assemblies of God church while running for president and wow the people in the pews. Or not. Because it’s complicated.

Posner points out how the “progressive” media gets her wrong, from Think Progress, to Salon, to Mother Jones.