Ultimately, the programs that the religious leaders were lobbying for were protected in the debt ceiling deal, though it's unclear how big a role the religious leaders played.

For liberal Christians, such victories embody the justice of the social gospel, the idea that believers should do God's work -- even aid the Second Coming -- by improving society.

"I do notice that sometimes, like on health care, when [Obama] says it's the right thing to do, it's him saying you love God by loving your neighbor," says Watkins, who leads a mainline denomination called Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). "He's doing the best he can to be guided by God so he can be a faithful follower of Christ."

Skeptics might write off Obama's Bible talk as sanctimonious window dressing, aimed at no higher purpose than connecting with churchgoers in the purple and red states. But translating the Good Book into progressive politics has always been a mainstay of Obama's political biography.

'An awesome God in the blue states'

When Obama landed on Chicago's South Side in 1985 as an idealistic 23-year-old, eager to start work as a community organizer, he was already a political liberal.

He was also a man without a religion, the son of a spiritual-but-not-religious mother whom he would later describe as "a lonely witness for secular humanism" and an estranged African father who was born a Muslim but died an atheist.

Obama's work in Chicago, built around causes like tenants' rights and job training for laid-off workers, was steeped in religion.

His salary was paid by a coalition of churches. And the job took him into many black churches, among the most influential institutions in the neighborhood he was organizing, including Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ.

After a lifelong struggle to fit in, set in motion by his mixed-race parents, Trinity felt like home.

"I came to realize that without a vessel for beliefs, without an unequivocal commitment to a particular community of faith," he wrote later, "I would be consigned at some level to always remain apart."

The changes that Wright's church wrought weren't just personal. Baptism and active membership there equipped Obama with an ability to connect with churchgoers he was trying to organize -- and, years later, with religious voters he was trying to win over -- in a deeper way.

Wright, who did not respond to interview requests for this story, gave Obama a moral framework for his liberal politics. The pastor espoused a black liberation theology that equates Jesus' life and death with the plight of those who Wright saw as disenfranchised, from African-Americans to Palestinians.

"Wright is the religious version of almost everything Obama already believed without religion," says Mansfield, who spent time at Trinity for his book. "It's a support of oppressed people anywhere in the world."

When Obama emerged on the national stage, his comfortable religiosity and sensitivity to the concerns of churchgoing Americans helped distinguish him as a Democrat.

"We worship an awesome God in the blue states," he declared to huge applause in his keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, catching the attention of young Christians like Joshua DuBois.

But at that same convention, Obama's party nominated John Kerry, a candidate who eschewed God talk and who lost his own Catholic demographic on Election Day.

Four years later, Obama hired religious outreach staffers like DuBois for his presidential campaign and made a point of meeting with Christian Right leaders who'd never before heard from a Democratic presidential nominee.

Obama went on to win in places like Indiana and North Carolina, evangelical-heavy states that a Democratic presidential nominee hadn't taken in decades.

If the Rev. Wright had almost brought down his presidential campaign, the controversial minister had also long ago laid the groundwork for Obama to connect with the churchgoing voters who had turned their backs on Kerry.

The politics of confusion

As president, the line between Obama's personal convictions and his political prowess on religious matters can sometimes be hard to discern.

Obama invited the conservative evangelical megapastor Rick Warren to give the invocation at his 2009 inauguration, ruffling liberal feathers. He introduced an annual Easter prayer breakfast as a new White House tradition. He gives shout-outs to young evangelical leaders in major speeches.

All can be seen as genuine reflections of Obama's faith and his appreciation for the role of religious leaders in public life. And in a nation where more people believe in angels than in evolution -- a fact that the president himself has publicly noted -- all promise political benefits.

The same could be said for Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, and for presidents as diverse as Jimmy Carter and Reagan: All had deep spiritual streaks that enabled the political art of courting religious Americans, especially evangelicals.