Obama has publicly mentioned his “Christian faith” more times in the past three months than he did over the past year. He has more frequently cited passages of the Bible, including repeated references to Genesis 4:9 – “I am my brother’s keeper; I am my sister’s keeper” — which was a mainstay of Obama’s 2010 campaign stump speech. And he’s taken his family to church twice, a shift for a president who has preferred to worship privately since the end of the 2008 campaign…

But one key difference between the way Obama is now referencing his “Christian faith” and how he has in the past is in the types of events.

In the early months of his time in office in particular, Obama’s speeches were dotted with religious references – but those were mostly in front of religious audiences. Before September, for example, Obama’s use of “Christian faith” had appeared during videotaped remarks at the start of Ramadan in August 2009, a statement on the feast of the Nativity last January and a February speech at the National Prayer Breakfast.

Lately he’s been dropping the phrase in more secular settings, such as a town hall event and a news conference.