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Over at Religion Dispatches, Sarah Posner has an interesting look at Michele Bachmann’s ideological roots, focusing on her law school years at Oral Roberts University. Oral Roberts, who famously built his school after receiving a direct order from God, isn’t the story here; it’s Herb Titus, a Christian attorney who helped found the law school and spent his career promoting an ideology known as Christian Reconstructionism—the idea that “Christianity is the basis of our law, that lawyers and judges should follow God’s law, and that the failure to do so is evidence of a ‘tyrannical,’ leftist agenda.” Here’s Posner:

Bachmann’s history of questioning Barack Obama’s American-ness, or of espousing “normal people values,” is rooted in the Reconstructionist conception of “American-ness.” Not just Christian, but their kind of Christian; one who would obey God, exercise “dominion authority,” and, most crucially, is one of their “brethren.” Titus, founder of Bachmann’s law school, happens to be the architect of a legal theory—as far outside of the legal mainstream as his Establishment Clause theory—that Obama is not a “natural-born citizen,” a designation that would render him ineligible to be president due to his “divided loyalties.” Deuteronomy 17, he insists, demands that that the “king” be selected from one’s own “brethren.” As an outsider Obama isn’t a “real” American, worthy—according to the bible or the Constitution—of being president.

Bachmann’s not responsible for the views of everyone she associates with. But as folks begin to scrutinize her views more carefully, it’s important to understand where she’s actually coming from. As I’ve explained previously, her worldview might strike you as extreme (and at times conspiratorial), but there is a coherent method to it all.