Barack Obama says his controversial former pastor was stuck in a "time warp" and suggests he would have left his Chicago church had Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. not retired.

While still defending what he called the "broader aspect" of his long-time pastor, Obama said in a pre-taped interview with ABC's "The View," which aired Friday, that Wright's most offensive sermons drew from an outdated view of America and its prejudices.

"What they spoke to was, I think, a brilliant man who was still caught in a time warp back in the '60s, early '70s and the '50s, where he grew up, and had a sense of where America was and didn't have a good enough sense of how it had changed," he said.

Obama disputed what he called an overstated notion that Wright was his "spiritual adviser" or "mentor."

Hillary Clinton earlier this week for the first time spoke out on the controversy over Wright, whose anti-American and racially charged sermons threatened Obama's campaign. The New York senator said she would have left the church if her pastor behaved like Obama's.

Asked what he'd do if the reverend had stayed on, Obama told "The View": "Had the reverend not retired, and had he not acknowledged that what he had said had deeply offended people and were inappropriate and mischaracterized what I believe is the greatness of this country, for all its flaws, then I wouldn't have felt comfortable staying at the church."

As he did in his speech on race more than a week ago, Obama continued to defend Wright's character. He said he spoke with him recently, and "I told him I feel badly that he has been characterized just in this one way. People haven't seen this broader aspect of him."

Obama reiterated that he never personally heard Wright's most controversial sermons.

"Now keep in mind he's preaching three times every Sunday and for 30 years, and I'm not vetting my pastor and I didn't have a research team during the course of these 20 years go pull every sermon that he's given and see if there's something offensive that he said," Obama said, adding that "I don't purchase all the DVDs."

In his sermons over the years, Wright has railed against the United States and accused it of bringing on the Sept. 11 attacks by spreading terrorism. He also has said the government invented AIDS to destroy "people of color" and has shouted "God damn America" for its treatment of minorities.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.