Bachmann's "joke" about Irene being a message from God raises some fundamental theological issues that she obviously has not considered.
Disclaimer: I am no longer a Christian, but am interested in the history of the religion. Nothing I have to say here reflects on any Christian who seeks to follow the teachings of Jesus. I have nothing but respect for people who genuinely try to emulate the humanist teachings of Jesus.
Jewish apocalypticists did not believe God caused disasters to punish man or to otherwise interfere with the world. That was a centuries earlier idea embraced by the prophets, who did maintain that various disasters befell the Israelites because of their lack of faithfulness to God, etc. It was only after centuries of repeated defeat at the hands of their enemies that Jews came to believe in apocalypticism.
Apocalypticists believed that the enemies of God (Satan, demons, assorted other baddies) caused disasters. That was the whole idea of apocalypticism, that God would send a holy warrior to destroy the enemies of God (and Israel) and give relief to the beleaguered Jews. Apocalypticism was central to the teachings of Jesus, and continued into the Christian era with the teachings of Paul and the gospel writers.
The idea that God directly* causes disasters to punish alleged evildoers is a perversion of the beliefs of Jesus and the earliest Christians. It is but one of many perversions of the teachings of Jesus that continue to proliferate among so-called fundamentalist "Christians" today.
I am convinced that were he here today, Jesus would be turning over their offering tables just as he turned over the tables of the money changers in the Jerusalem temple.
If you believe in an "antichrist," it is pretty clear to me that these people would be his minions.
I have deduced from historical and scientific evidence (notice I did not say I "believe") that disasters are caused by natural forces governed by the laws of the universe, and are not supernaturally influenced to counterintuitively save the righteous by killing them in often horrific ways.
*Some maintain that without respect to devils and demons, God is ultimately responsible for disasters because the devils and demons are permitted by God to do their evil.