John McCain and Barack Obama have one thing in common—a pastor problem. McCain has come under fire for John Hagee’s comments regarding Catholics and Hurricane Katrina, while Obama is taking heat for anti-American sermons by his pastor, Jeremiah Wright.

Hagee’s endorsement of McCain has outraged many, and is arguably hurting McCain more than helping him. Recognizing this, McCain took a strong (albeit repetitious) stance against Hagee’s Katrina comments (in which he called the hurricane God’s judgment against the people of New Orleans) while visiting the Gulf Coast last week:

It’s nonsense, it’s nonsense, it’s nonsense, it’s nonsense, it’s nonsense. I don’t have anything additional to say. It’s nonsense, it’s nonsense, it’s nonsense, I don’t have anything more to say … it’s nonsense. I reject it categorically.

In response to controversy surrounding Wright’s comments, Obama delivered a speech on race in Philadelphia in March, and has called Wright’s words “divisive,” “racially charged” and “views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation.”

On Monday, however, Wright fought back, accusing Obama of politicking:

He had to distance himself, because he’s a politician, from what the media was saying I had said, which was anti-American. He said I didn’t offer any words of hope. How would he know? He never heard the rest of the sermon.

Politics or not, quarantining himself from Wright is a necessity for Obama, especially since polls show Wright’s comments are costing the Obama campaign.

But these candidates vs. pastor problems mark a growing trend. Men of the cloth are increasingly taking on the role of political adviser, not just spiritual leader. This past fall, Robert Jeffers, pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, campaigned against Mitt Romney, encouraging his congregation not to elect the former governor. Kenneth Taylor, a pastor in Algoma, Wis., might soon be fighting for his tax exempt status because of a politically-charged sermon he gave during the last election.

Because pastors are the shepherds of the flock, it is reasonable to expect them to point out danger and keep their parishioners from it. But increasingly, conservative pastors are sounding more like infamous Reverends such as Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. Such comments also leave many Christian conservatives fumbling to defend language similar to Wright’s—a glaring hypocrisy to many.

The freeway between the “city of God” and the “city of man” keeps expanding. With the number of pastors preaching politics from the pulpit, we can probably expect more controversy.

A bit paradoxically, John McCain’s growing pack of endorsers presages a rocky road for the presumptive GOP candidate, whom many conservatives still have trouble rallying behind. On Thursday, McCain picked up the backing of former Secretary of State James Baker, and on Wednesday of another, more controversial John—Pastor Hagee, a well-known megachurch televangelist and pro-Israel author.

The Hagee endorsement could help McCain’s standing among evangelicals, but the pastor of the 19,000-member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio has made what critics say are anti-Catholic comments. Catholic League president Bill Donohue yesterday spoke out against Hagee, saying he’s “waged an unrelenting war against the Catholic Church.” Hagee has indeed referred to the Catholic Church as “the Great Whore of Revelation 17,” the “antichrist system,” the “apostate church.” (Mike Huckabee likewise received flak for speaking at Hagee’s church in December.)

Donohue’s joined media pundits in saying Hagee represents for McCain what the Nation of Islam’s Louis Farrakhan represents for Barack Obama, a problem Tim Russert tried to highlight during Tuesday night’s Ohio debate, drawing in the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s minister at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago who has praised Farrakhan. “Why is Louis Farrakhan deemed by our political establishment to be so radioactive as to not be fit for good company—black candidates are required to repudiate his support even when they haven’t sought it and denounce his views even when they’ve never advocated anything close to those views—but John Hagee is a perfectly acceptable figure whom mainstream GOP politicians are free to court without any consequences or media objections?” Glenn Greenwald writes in Salon.

At the opposite end, McCain lost the support of backer Bill Cunningham, a popular talk-show host in Cincinnati who styles himself after Rush Limbaugh, after McCain repudiated Cunningham’s repeated use of “Barack Hussein Obama” and disparaging comments during a crowd warm-up. (McCain was entering the rally as Cunningham went into his screed.) Afterwards, McCain said he wanted “to dissociate myself with any disparaging remarks that may have been said about” Obama. Cunningham also called Obama “a hack, Chicago-style Daley politician” whom the media would eventually “peel the bark off” and reveal “sweetheart deals” he received in Chicago. Cunningham, often and ardently denounced by critics as a right-winger, then bizarrely said Tuesday on Fox News that he is “going to endorse Hillary Rodham Clinton for president because she would do a better job in the Oval Office.”