The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette says GOP presidential candidate Fred Thompson overstated the extent of support he has received from members of the Wesleyan/Methodist movement. The former senator, in a Dec. 14 announcement, said he received the endorsement from “two men who represent 40 million people around the nation from 42 different Wesleyan denominations.”

But the newspaper noted that the math was a bit off, with reporter Frank Lockwood stating that the religious leaders “represent a group closer to the size of West Memphis, not the state of California.” One of those men, the Rev. Benny Tate, the vice president of the Congregational Methodist Church told the paper his conservative Wesleyan denomination has 26,000 to 27,000 members. He and the Rev. Phillip Knight, the president of that denomination, lead the Wesleyan Center for Strategic Studies that was formed from an annual meeting of leaders from conservative Wesleyan/Methodist denominations, Thompson’s campaign said.

In a comment on a story on his Ethics.Daily.com Web site, Robert Parham said the candidate overstated both the number of Methodists and Wesleyans in the country _ probably closer to 14.2 million _ and showed “how disconnected he is from American Christianity.”