When it became known in late 1976 that the Plains Baptist Church had a 12-year-old policy on its books that excluded "blacks and other civil rights agitators" from worshiping there, its most prominent member - soon-to-be-president Jimmy Carter - rejected calls that he resign from the parish.
"I can't resign as an American citizen because there's still discrimination," he said at the time. "And I don't intend to resign from my own church because there's discrimination."
Thirty-two years later, a string of incidents involving presidential contenders, pastors and churches illustrates how tricky the navigation of religious terrain continues to be for political candidates.
Sen. Barack Obama resigned his longtime membership with the Trinity United Church of Christ after public outrage over incendiary statements by its former minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and a visiting Catholic priest, the Rev. Michael Pfleger.
Sen. John McCain rejected the endorsements of two prominent evangelical ministers, the Rev. John C. Hagee and the Rev. Rod Parsley, after they were likewise assailed for inflammatory comments.
In some ways, little has changed. Ministers - sometimes controversial ones - have been involved in politics since the founding of the Republic.
If anything, "pastors are a lot more moderate than they used to be," said Ted G. Jelen, a political science professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and the co-editor of the journal Politics and Religion.
"You used to hear in evangelical Protestant churches that the Pope is the Antichrist or the Catholic Church is the whore of Babylon," Jelen said.
Shake up status quo
That said, many contemporary politicians have attended churches led by pastors who occasionally articulate controversial views, said Sally Steenland, senior policy adviser to the Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank.
Indeed, she pointed out, the role of the pastor is to be prophetic and to stand up to the status quo.
But, until now, the public had little sense of exactly what was brewing behind church doors, because video cameras were not so prevalent and sermons didn't show up on YouTube every Sunday, Steenland said.
The 21st century's relentless 24-hour news cycle, cable and the Internet have changed all that.
"Religion was more sheltered in the private realm," she said. "All these devices and technologies mean that there is no longer any zone of privacy at all."
