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Meet the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the pastor who brought Barack Obama to Christianity, officiated at his wedding, baptised his children, provided him with years of spiritual advice and the title for his bestselling book, The Audacity of Hope. The pastor gives the kind of endorsement in this sermon that may harm rather than help Obama's bid for the Democratic nomination.

The candidate has been increasingly distancing himself from the pastor's comments, especially since it has emerged that Jeremiah Wright used a sermon to claim that the 9/11 attacks were like "chickens coming home to roost". Obama's enemies are clearly now trying to link the pastor's language, which they regard as "hate speech", with Obama himself.

Barack Obama has explained that he joined Pastor Wright's church, Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, nearly 20 years ago. He says, "Reverend Wright preached the gospel of Jesus, a gospel on which I base my life," he wrote. "... And the sermons I heard him preach always related to our obligation to love God and one another, to work on behalf of the poor and to seek justice at every turn." Barack and Michelle Obama continue to members of the church following Pastor Wright's retirement, under the new leadership of the Reverend Otis Moss, III.

Senator Obama is not alone in facing calls to repudiate sermons by pastoral supporters. The Republican candidate for President, John McCain, has come under pressure to denounce a televangelist supporter, the Reverend Rod Parsley, who has preached about a "clash of civilisations" between Islam and Christianity.