President Obama's speech at the National Prayer Breakfast last Thursday serves as a reminder of the hazards of relying on easy or settled conclusions about the complicated relationships between religion and politics in the US.

Darn it, things were a heck of a lot simpler under his predecessor: George W. Bush was the standard bearer for an aggressive and corporately financed fundamentalist Christian right bent on restoring a Christian America – even establishing a "theocracy" – and rolling back the frontiers of secularism. We Europeans knew where we stood. In a single sweeping repudiation, we could set our faces simultaneously against his crass religion, his heartless economics and his militaristic adventurism (along with his stupid grin).