Obama addresses faith

Hours after his former pastor took the national stage to defend his controversial remarks, Barack Obama directly addressed his faith while speaking to North Carolina voters.

In a town hall meeting in Wilmington, N.C., Obama said his religious beliefs help him stay grounded and not get too high or too low during the campaign.

Obama also said that the "golden rule" sustains him through mistakes he makes. "If you say I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper," he said, any errors will not be fatal.

Obama, who spent 20 years in the pews of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago while the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. preached, has denounced some of Wright's most incendiary comments that critics describe as anti-American. But in a speech last month on race and politics and since, Obama has taken pains not to denounce the man who performed his wedding and baptized his two daughters.

In a speech at the National Press Club this morning, Wright portrayed criticism of him as an attack on the black church and said that Obama distanced himself out of political reality.