{"id":18,"date":"2007-08-30T13:14:54","date_gmt":"2007-08-30T13:14:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godometer\/2007\/08\/thompsons-old-pastor-comes-out.html"},"modified":"2007-08-30T13:14:54","modified_gmt":"2007-08-30T13:14:54","slug":"thompsons-old-pastor-comes-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/08\/thompsons-old-pastor-comes-out.html","title":{"rendered":"Thompson\u2019s old pastor comes out of the woodwork"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Fred Thompson has been beat up for giving the impression that he\u2019s an infrequent churchgoer and none-too-devout (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.usnews.com\/usnews\/news\/articles\/070328\/28dobson.htm\">including by Focus on the Family founder James Dobson<\/a>), but now his old pastor is coming to his defense. Andy Brown, Thompson\u2019s childhood pastor at the First Street Church of Christ in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee <a href=\"http:\/\/latimesblogs.latimes.com\/washington\/2007\/08\/thompson-rove-a.html\">tells the Los Angeles Times<\/a> that Thompson underwent a full immersion baptism at age 12\u2014he even dug up the church bulletin from December 15, 1954 to prove it\u2014and that the Thompson family regularly attended services twice a week. While touched by the pastor\u2019s defense, God-o-Meter was ultimately unimpressed, feeling that it would likely remind religious conservatives that, so far, Thompson\u2019s last documented church attendance apparently occurred more than 50 years ago.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\n4<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fred Thompson has been beat up for giving the impression that he\u2019s an infrequent churchgoer and none-too-devout (including by Focus on the Family founder James Dobson), but now his old pastor is coming to his defense. Andy Brown, Thompson\u2019s childhood pastor at the First Street Church of Christ in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee tells the Los Angeles&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fred-thompson"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Thompson\u2019s old pastor comes out of the woodwork - God-O-Meter<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/08\/thompsons-old-pastor-comes-out.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Thompson\u2019s old pastor comes out of the woodwork - God-O-Meter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Fred Thompson has been beat up for giving the impression that he\u2019s an infrequent churchgoer and none-too-devout (including by Focus on the Family founder James Dobson), but now his old pastor is coming to his defense. Andy Brown, Thompson\u2019s childhood pastor at the First Street Church of Christ in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee tells the Los Angeles&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/08\/thompsons-old-pastor-comes-out.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"God-O-Meter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-08-30T13:14:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"dgilgoff\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Thompson\u2019s old pastor comes out of the woodwork - God-O-Meter","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godometer\/2007\/08\/thompsons-old-pastor-comes-out.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Thompson\u2019s old pastor comes out of the woodwork - God-O-Meter","og_description":"Fred Thompson has been beat up for giving the impression that he\u2019s an infrequent churchgoer and none-too-devout (including by Focus on the Family founder James Dobson), but now his old pastor is coming to his defense. 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