Obama: 'I'm a Christian by Choice'

President Obama was unusually forthcoming today about his religion, explaining to a questioner that he is "Christian by choice," reports the Washington Post. Addressing the issue for the first time since a Pew poll found that many Americans think he's Muslim, the president said that his parents "didn't raise me in the church" and "so I came to my Christian faith later in life."

He did so "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." Obama, speaking at a backyard gathering in Albuquerque, added that "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." (More President Obama stories.)