I start this post by noting that Senator Obama’s ascension means something to my family and me. My three children are the children of an interracial marriage; none of them considers his or her self white. Seeing an African-American man becoming a party’s presidential candidate is important for our family. But Obama has a slight church problem.

It’s not his controversial former pastor, whom I’ve blogenberged about previously. It’s that, with his impressive oratorical skills, he sometimes forgets he’s not in an African-American church. That’s what happened with his recent “bitter gate.” He didn’t say anything so awful. He didn’t say anything that would make a reasonable person conclude he’s elitist. But he gave attacks an opening.

I’ve been the only white face in an African-American church, at an African-American wedding, and in an African-American club. My wife often listens to the Sunday sermons at Andrew Rankin Memorial Chapel at Howard University, and I listen along. It doesn’t make me any darker than the average white guy, just a bit different in my insights.

Homilies at African-American churches often mix political with the spiritual. Not every line would pass a magazine’s fact checker (I’m not sure they would in my church, either) — or political opposition research, for that matter — but the meaning and the feeling are expertly communicated. Obama’s real good at that style of communicating. But, as he’s learning with “bitter gate,” it can be dangerous in politics.

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