Barack Obama Denounces Pastor

Barack Hussein Obama has denounced inflammatory remarks made by his pastor who accused the US interim government of bringing on the September 11 attacks.

By: Michael Stevens
Mar 15, 2008, 11:51 AM EDT

Barack Obama called Reverend Jeremiah Write's statements, which were widely aired on television and the Internet, completely unacceptable and inexcusable during a television interview with Fox News.

Obama said that the quoted remarks did not reflect the kinds of sermons he had heard from his pastor while attending services at Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ.

The Illinois senator, a member of the church since the early 1990s, said he would have quit Trinity had such statements been heard as he wouldn't feel comfortable there.

Reverend Write brought the Illinois senator to Christianity, officiated at his wedding, baptized his daughters and inspired the title of his book, "The Audacity of Hope."

Obama wrote that he has looked to Wright for spiritual advice, not political guidance, and he has been pained and angered to learn of some of his pastor's comments for which he had not been present. The Illinois senator told the cable television news station MSNBC that Wright had stepped down from his campaign's African American Religious Leadership Committee.

"I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country or serves to divide us from our allies," Obama said. "I also believe that words that degrade individuals have no place in our public dialogue, whether it's on the campaign stump or in the pulpit. In sum, I reject outright the statements by Reverend Wright that are at issue."