LYNCHBURG, Va. — Texas Gov. Rick Perry is a man of faith, and one of the big questions about him has been whether he will seek the presidency more as an evangelist or as a job creator.

On the debate stage, Perry has done the latter. But he demonstrated Wednesday that he will not shy away from cloaking his candidacy in his Christianity, delivering an address here at the late Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University that presented his life in deeply spiritual terms and cast his political aspirations as destiny.