Video clips of fiery sermons given by Sen. Barack Obama's former pastor, in Obama's former church, set off a firestorm of controversy in March during the Democratic primaries.

"We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye," Wright sermonized after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. "We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost."

In another sermon he said Obama's opponents "hate old Barack because he doesn't fit the mold. He ain't white. He ain't rich. He ain't privileged," adding, "Barack knows what it means to be a black man living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people. Hillary (Clinton)! Hillary ain't never been called a 'n*****!' Hillary has never had her people defined as a non-person."

"The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people," Wright said in a 2003 sermon. "God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."

Like all the sermons from the church, videos of the sermons are available for sale on the church's Web site. The site also posts the church's mission: "Trinity United Church of Christ has been called by God to be a congregation that is not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ and that does not apologize for its African roots! As a congregation of baptized believers, we are called to be agents of liberation not only for the oppressed, but for all of God’s family. We, as a church family, acknowledge, that we will, building on this affirmation of "who we are" and "whose we are," call men, women, boys and girls to the liberating love of Jesus Christ, inviting them to become a part of the church universal, responding to Jesus' command that we go into all the world and make disciples!"

Obama said he came to Christianity through Wright and was a member of his church for 20 years. Wright presided at Obama's marriage to his wife, Michelle. Obama took the title of his 2006 book, "The Audacity of Hope," from a Wright sermon. But last year, he asked Wright not to offer a prayer at his campaign's kickoff in Springfield, Ill. And he has said he and Wright have not always agreed on political and social issues.

"What I value most about Pastor Wright is not his day-to-day political advice," Obama told the Chicago Tribune in January 2007. "He's much more of a sounding board for me to make sure that I am speaking as truthfully about what I believe as possible and that I'm not losing myself in some of the hype and hoopla and stress that's involved in national politics."

Once the Wright comments began to circulate in March, Obama denounced them repeatedly, said he had never been in the church pews when the controversial remarks were made, and eventually left the church.

He also gave a speech at the National Constitution Center, not far from where the Declaration of Independence was adopted in Philadelphia, that directly addressed the Wright issue. Drawing on his half-black, half-white roots, Obama asserted: "This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected."

"The profound mistake of Rev. Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society," Obama said. "It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country - a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen -- is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope -- the audacity to hope -- for what we can and must achieve tomorrow." (Obama Speech: Video | Transcript)