Barack Obama Starts Own Church

Obama will find spiritual comfort in his own house of worship.

After weeks of searching in vain for a new spiritual home, Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama has decided to start his own church.

The Most Reverential House of Yes We Can A.M.E Zion will hold its first service this Sunday in a building the Obama 2008 Presidential Campaign recently purchased from Tony Rezko on West 95th Street in Chicago for $10 and "other considerations".

“It makes a lot of sense,” Obama supporter Oprah Winfrey told The Peoples News in an exclusive interview. “After what Barack has done this year, a lot of people think he is bigger than Jesus. Some even think he’s bigger than me and I'm bigger than Jesus.”

The unorthodox move occurred after numerous spiritual leaders refused to let Obama join their churches. Given the public condemnations that his previous spiritual advisors Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Father Michael Fleger received, none of the other pastors wanted to risk the increased scrutiny his presence would bring.

“Not all my sermons were about giving God the glory,” said the Rev. Leroy Wilson of The Church of What’s Happening Now. “Sometimes they were about giving Whitey hell.”

In fact, just about every pastor who leads a predominantly African-American congregation has “said something crazy in their day,” said Cornell West, professor of religion at Princeton University.

“But most intelligent people understand that what the pastor says from the pulpit doesn’t necessarily reflect the mindset of every single person hearing those words even if they've sat there for 20 plus years,” West said. “Everyone except people who work for certain other campaigns, I guess.”

Many people, especially blacks, look at Obama as a miracle worker. Essie Smith, 81, a grandmother who lives on Chicago’s west side, has already put the candidate’s photo in her living room beside Martin Luther King Jr., Louis Farrakhan, Jesse Jackson, Jesus and Al Sharpton.

“He’s a black man who beat a white woman and didn’t even have to go to jail,” Smith said. “If he can do that, he can do anything.”