Barack Obama and his wife Michelle have cut ties with Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, after controversies stemming from the church created a persistent distraction for the Democratic presidential candidate's campaign.

Obama said Saturday that he made the decision with "some sadness," but that he had been discussing it with his family for "quite some time" and that he did not want to be a continuing burden on the congregation.

The furor started months ago with the sermons of his former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. But Obama's pastor problems were compounded this week by the Rev. Michael Pfleger, whose videotaped guest sermon at the church Sunday showed him taunting Hillary Clinton and saying she felt "entitled" to the presidency because she's white.

Obama said he was deeply disappointed by the remarks and Pfleger apologized, but Clinton's campaign still demanded Obama specifically reject the latest remarks.

By dropping his 20-year membership, Obama is taking the most definitive stand to date against the church.

He suggested that the Pfleger backlash was the deciding factor for him.

"It's clear that now that I'm a candidate for president, every time something is said in the church by anyone associated with Trinity, including guest pastors, the remarks will be imputed to me, even if they totally conflict with my long-held views, statements and principles," he said, praising the congregation and church leaders for their work in the Chicago community.

"It's not fair to the other members of the church who seek to worship in peace, so our faith remains strong and I suspect we will find another church home for our family."

In Obama's May 30 letter to the church, he wrote that his relationship with the church had been "strained" by the statements of Wright.

The new pastor Rev. Otis Moss III released a statement saying "we are saddened by the news, we understand that it is a personal decision."

Delivering the sermon on Sunday, Moss did not explicitly address Obama's departure, but  said he had good news -- Jesus still cares about the congregants.

"Do you want to hear the news, news about a man by the name of Jesus? He cares about you and cares about us ... When you get the good news, it changes all other news," Moss said.

Spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama quit the church "over the last few days."

The Illinois senator and front-runner for the Democratic nomination already has roundly condemned Wright.

Videos of Wright's sermons, in which he claimed the U.S. government created HIV to exterminate black people and said "God damn America," threatened to derail Obama's campaign when they first surfaced in March.

Obama said he disagreed with his former pastor but initially portrayed him as a family member he couldn't disown. The preacher had officiated at Obama's wedding and been his spiritual mentor for some 20 years.

But six weeks after Obama's well-received speech on race, Wright again claimed at an appearance in Washington that the U.S. government was capable of planting AIDS in the black community, praised Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and suggested that Obama was acting like a politician by putting his pastor at arm's length while privately agreeing with him.

Obama denounced those Wright comments as "divisive and destructive."

Comments by Wright inflamed racial tensions and posed an unwanted problem for Obama as he prepares for a general election battle against presumptive GOP nominee John McCain.

The timing of Obama's decision was clearly planned with an eye toward Washington and the calendar. The news broke late on a Saturday and while most of the political attention was focused on the Democratic National Committee's struggle to seat delegates from Florida and Michigan.

McCain also has had his woes with religious leaders.

Earlier this month, McCain rejected endorsements from two influential but controversial televangelists, saying there is no place for their incendiary criticisms of other faiths.

McCain spurned the months-old endorsement of Texas preacher John Hagee after an audio recording surfaced in which the preacher said God sent Adolf Hitler to help Jews reach the promised land. McCain called the comment "crazy and unacceptable."

He later repudiated the support of Rod Parsley, an Ohio preacher who has sharply criticized Islam and called the religion inherently violent.

FOX News' Bonney Kapp and Major Garrett and The Associated Press contributed to this report.