Controversial Religious Advisers Bring Scrutiny

Obama, McCain have gently distanced themselves from religious advisers' views.

ByABC News
March 13, 2008, 2:12 PM

March 14, 2008— -- The controversial views expressed by Sen. Barack Obama's pastor have renewed scrutiny of the role that religious leaders play in the 2008 presidential campaign.

Sens. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., have spoken openly about their faith during the campaign, and both have reached out to religious voters, touting the endorsements and support from influential religious leaders in order to appeal to religious or so-called "values voters."

Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who antagonized Christian evangelicals by calling Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson "agents of intolerance" during the 2000 campaign, has made broad overtures to his party's religious voters this time around.

As with the campaign surrogates who have made headlines recently for going off-message, the candidates have had to gingerly distance themselves from the controversial views of some of their religious advisers.

But while certain revelations can be politically embarrassing for a presidential candidate, the benefit of a religious image and ties to influential ministers generally outweigh any political risk, say many political watchers.

Obama tried this month to downplay controversial preachings of his pastor of 20 years, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright whose "inflammatory rhetoric," as Obama aides have called it, proclaims that the United States provoked the 9/11 attacks with its own "terrorism."

ABC News reported Thursday that Obama said Wright "is like an old uncle who says things I don't always agree with," telling a Jewish group earlier this month that every family has someone like that.

Wright is listed as a national leader of the Obama campaign's "African American Religious Leadership Committee."

"Let me say at the outset that I vehemently disagree and strongly condemn the statements that have been the subject of this controversy," Obama wrote in a statement circulated by the campaign.

"I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country or serves to divide us from our allies. 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 Rev. Wright that are at issue," Obama wrote.

Obama isn't the only candidate who has had to distance himself from comments by a religious adviser.

In February, McCain distanced himself from supporter John Hagee, a televangelist and San Antonio megachurch leader who has referred to the Roman Catholic Church as "the great whore" and called it a "false cult system."