Radio Spot Highlights Obama's Religious Side

A Political Action Committee overseen by the director of religious outreach for John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign is running an ad on Christian radio defending presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama.

The ad will run starting today on radio stations in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where Obama speaks about national service this morning. Colorado Springs is the home of Focus on the Family, whose conservative evangelical leader, James Dobson, suggested last week that Obama is "deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology."

"You know it's an election year when certain people start grabbing headlines by attacking the faith of Presidential candidates," says a narrator in the spot. "With all these stones being cast at Senator Obama, it can be hard to know what to believe. But in Luke, Jesus taught us that we must listen to what a man says because 'out of the overflow of his heart, his mouth speaks.'"

Obama then offers what the narrator characterizes as "words from [his] heart":

"I think we make a mistake when we fail to acknowledge the power of faith in people's lives," he says. "Kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side, I felt that I heard God's spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth."

Listen:

The group behind the spot, The Matthew 25 Network, held a fundraiser in June in which it said it was looking to reach out to "targeted religious communities that are key to electoral success for Senator Obama, including Catholics, moderate evangelicals, Hispanic Catholics and Protestants," according to the New York Times.