Tales from the Trail

President Barack Obama made a clear declaration of his Christian faith on Thursday and seemed to express some frustration that his beliefs continue to be called into question.

“Let me tell you, these past two years, they have deepened my faith,” Obama told a ballroom full of applauding believers at the annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington.

“The presidency has a funny way of making a person feel the need to pray.”

He detailed how, after a non-religious upbringing, he came to define himself as a Christian.

“A call rooted in faith is what led me, just a few years out of college, to sign up as a community organizer for a group of churches on the south side of Chicago,” he said.

He may appear calm, cool and collected in public. But a year after taking office, President Barack Obama confesses that words sometimes do hurt him.

On the eve of Martin Luther King Day, Obama paid homage to the civil rights leader and reflected on his own faith in an address at a Baptist church in Washington.

“You know, folks ask me sometimes why I look so calm,” Obama said before a largely African-American congregation.

HOUSTON – Barack Obama is a man without a church.

The Illinois Senator and likely Democratic Party nominee for the November presidential election against Republican John McCain said on Saturday he had quit his Chicago church in the aftermath of inflammatory sermons that could become a political lightning rod.

Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president, cut ties last month with the former pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ, Jeremiah Wright, who angered many with anti-American and racially charged sermons.

Just as controversy over Wright had died down, a Roman Catholic priest mocked Obama’s Democratic rival Hillary Clinton during a guest appearance at Trinity United in ways sure to cause offense to some.