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LOUISVILLE, K.Y. By all accounts, Hillary Clinton is a devoted Methodist whose life has been guided by the church's obligations to help the less fortunate and advocate for those who have no voice.But Clinton's proclamation of her faith, once a regular part of her public discourse, has been absent of late.

Until now.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivers the keynote address to the United Methodist Women's Assembly at the Kentucky International Convention Center, Saturday, April 26, 2014, in Louisville, Ky. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)

Clinton addressed the United Methodist Women Assembly here Saturday morning, a "homecoming" that allowed her and others to celebrate the works Methodist women are doing across the country and world.But could it also be a return to the idea that Clinton will talk more publicly about her faith, especially as she prepares for a potential presidential run in 2016?

"I have always cherished the Methodist Church because it gave us the great gift of personal salvation but also the great obligation of social gospel," Clinton said to the group of 7,000 women gathered here. "And I took that very seriously and have tried, tried to be guided in my own life ever since as an advocate for children and families, for women and men around the world who are oppressed and persecuted, denied their human rights and human dignity."

Clinton once spoke freely and openly about her faith. Her 1996 book, It Takes a Village and Other Lessons Children Teach Us, has an entire chapter devoted to religion. Clinton wrote about how she and former President Bill Clinton were struck by the profound spiritual questions their daughter Chelsea and her friends raised and her deep roots in the Methodist faith.

"Religion figures in my earliest memories of my family," Clinton wrote, and said that the family's quest for spirituality was continual."Our spiritual life as a family was spirited and constant," she wrote. "We talked with God, walked with God, ate, studied and argued with God. Each night, we knelt by our beds to pray before we went to sleep."

Clinton also spoke at the 1996 United Methodist Convention.

The Church was a critical part of my growing up, and in preparing for this event, I almost couldn't even list all the ways it influenced me, and helped me develop as a person, not only on my own faith journey, but with a sense of obligations to others, she said in 1996, adding that Methodism has been important to me for as long as I can remember.

Clinton has spoke about how she was profoundly influenced by Don Jones, her youth pastor in Illinois, and by being active in religious, socially active groups at Wellesley College.

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Hillary Clinton is talking about her faith. Again.