"The precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that I would want to lead..."

Shifting away from the Rolling Stone piece, and to a backyard discussion (like we've seen before) in New Mexico (video will be posted as soon as its made available), the President addressed his faith:

In response to a woman who asked him why he is a Christian, Obama also offered some rare personal comments about his faith.

"I'm a Christian by choice," he said, noting that his mother "didn't raise me in the church" and that his family did not attend church every week.

"So I came to my Christian faith later in life," Obama said. "And it was because the precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that I would want to lead - being my brothers' and sisters' keeper, treating others as they would treat me."

He said he also reached an "understanding that . . . Jesus Christ dying for my sins spoke to the humility we all have to have as human beings, that we're sinful and we're flawed and we make mistakes, and that, you know, we achieve salvation through the grace of God."

He continued: "But what we can do, as flawed as we are, is still see God in other people and do our best to help them find . . . their own grace. And so that's what I strive to do. That's what I pray to do every day. I think my public service is part of that effort to express my Christian faith."

Obama emphasized, however, that "as president of the United States, I'm also somebody who deeply believes that part of the bedrock strength of this country is that it embraces people of many faiths and of no faith." While the United States "is still predominantly Christian," he said, "we have Jews, Muslims, Hindus, atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, and . . . their own path to grace is one that we have to revere and respect as much as our own."