Fred Thompson called out on his profession of faith Evangelical prof: not active in church

Doubts continue to swirl over Fred Thompson's faith ... Thompson shot back that he's not only a Christian, but a member of the fundamentalist Churches of Christ.

...Professor Mark Elrod of Harding University said he doubts Thompson is "filling out an attendance card at a Church of Christ on Sundays." ...he hasn't been able to find any information regarding the former senator's actual membership... "In our tradition," Elrod said, "that's called 'being out of fellowship' or a 'lapsed member.'"

... WND has learned Thompson was baptized into Christ in the early 1950s at the First Street Church of Christ in Lawrenceburg, Tenn.

His mother, Ruth Thompson, regularly attends the Brentwood Church of Christ near Nashville... Fred Thompson is known to worship there when he visits his mother.

In 1997, Thompson spoke at a fund-raising event at Freed-Hardeman University in Henderson, Tenn. – another college affiliated with the Churches of Christ – where he was presented with a Bible. He and his parents have set up academic scholarships in their names there.

According to a spokesman for Focus on the Family, Dobson had not not meant to disparage Thompson and was simply "attempting to highlight that to the best of his knowledge, Sen. Thompson hadn't clearly communicated his religious faith, and many evangelical Christians might find this a barrier to supporting him."

Thompson and his first wife, Sara Lindsey, divorced in 1985. The Church of Christ frowns on divorce, and believes only "fornication," or sexual infidelity, can be grounds for divorce and remarriage.

In 2002, Thompson and second wife, Jeri Kehn, were married in the liberal United Church of Christ, not the ultra-conservative Churches of Christ to which Thompson claims to belong.

The concept of annulment is found within marriage itself, because a valid marriage requires the free consent of both parties. If one of the parties cannot consent because that party is mentally impaired or forced at gunpoint (to give two extreme examples), that marriage, although facially valid, would be subject to annulment because of a failure of consent. It is not divorce, but simply a recognition that the element of consent was lacking, and an acknowledgment that a true marriage did not take place.

I have no idea whether the Church of Christ, or some individual Church, conflates the concepts of divorce and annulment. I do not even contend that there was a failure of consent in Fred Thompson’s first marriage that would subject it to annulment. I do not know. I only observe that, because of their very young age and the pregnancy, this marriage might well be one in which the requisite consent was lacking. If that were the case, the marriage would be invalid, and Fred Thompson would be considered by many churches to be in his first marriage.

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