Pesky Preachers

(Newser) - Republican leaders are beginning to worry that John McCain will lose the election unless he can be more consistent about both the financial crisis and Barack Obama, reports the New York Times . Strategists are also voicing renewed concerns about Sarah Palin, after the Alaska Legislature released a report last week concluding that she abused her power while governor of the state. More »

(Newser) - As a young man, Barack Obama experienced a lonely, drawn-out crisis of faith—and now finds himself churchless as the whole world watches, Newsweek reports. His father was an atheist Muslim, his mother a Christian who turned secular, and Obama eventually embraced Chicago's Trinity United after years of church-based activism. His conversion wasn't "a bolt of lightning," he said. "It was more a gradual process." More »

(Newser) - John McCain faces a challenge uncommon among GOP presidential candidates: rallying evangelical Christians to vote for him. As the New York Times reports, the McCain campaign is holding meetings with evangelical leaders and blasting them with emails, but many are still taking a wait-and-see approach. And McCain's lack of rapport with religious conservatives was exacerbated by his recent rejection of  endorsements of the Rev. John Hagee and the Rev. Rod Parsley. More »

(Newser) - Barack Obama has had to apologize for another troublesome preacher at his home church, reports MSNBC. The Rev. Michael Pfleger—a white Catholic priest widely known as Chicago's "renegade" priest for his liberal social activism in the city’s black community—mocked Hillary Clinton in a guest sermon, saying she squirted tears on the campaign trail because her sense of white entitlement had been punctured by Obama's success. More »

(Newser) - Barack Obama is tweaking John McCain for slinging muck on Rev. Jeremiah Wright on one hand while distancing himself from Rev. John Hagee on the other, the Chicago Tribune reports. “Nobody thinks that McCain believes that stuff," Obama said. "For McCain to then suggest that every single statement that was made by somebody is somehow attributable to me is just wrong.” More »

(Newser) - John McCain and John Hagee dissolved their union in tit-for-tat fashion today—one day after an offensive sermon about Hitler came to light. Hagee claimed God sent Hitler to perpetrate the Holocaust, because it was a “top priority for the Jewish people … to get them to come back to” Israel. McCain called the remarks “indefensible” as he “rejected” the controversial endorsement. More »

(Newser) - A Texas preacher whose anti-Catholic comments were haunting John McCain's campaign apologized today, and the president of the Catholic League accepted, Politico reports. In an apparent effort to avert a GOP version of the Jeremiah Wright situation, John Hagee wrote a letter about his "deep regret for any comments that Catholics have found hurtful"; those comments included referring to the faith as a "Godless theology." More »