They aren't ALWAYS, but the correlation is strong.
Partly it started in the 60's, as the deeply religious south shifted from the Democratic to the Republican party because of the Civil Rights movement. That kind of got the ball going I think.... But the recent history that has had the most to do with this in my opinion, centers around Francis Schaeffer, an evangelical theologian, who consciously decided that American Religious Conservatives were too a-political, and so went looking for a cause which would inspire religious conservatives to get involved in politics, and express their cultural power. He was smart enough to realize that to do so effectively they would have to make major inroads in one of the two political parties, so as to allow for real, long term, political change in a direction acceptable to religious conservatives.
In the late 70's he chose as the cause, Abortion, and as the party, the Republicans.
Mainstream republicans get something out of the bargain, in that they can stump about something besides protecting business... lets face it, protecting business is often an unpalatable position to have to defend to the electorate. Pro-business economic policies were there to convince the elite, and social conservative bible thumping was there to appeal to blue collar voters if and when repeating "jobs!" over and over lost its luster. ( In this, I see a real parallel between the present Republican party and the Wahhabist movements in Saudi Arabia. The latter's inception was about maintaining the power of the house of Saud, to drown out notice of political corruption with calls for religious purity.)
Meanwhile, religious conservatives got access to a party political infrastructure that their previously a-political stance made alien to them.
In a way it seems natural that after such a merging, people would try to strengthen that synthesis with ideas like Prosperity Gospel and the like. But ultimately, there's just something so internally contradictory about a party that embraces both Ayn Rand and Jesus Christ in such a non-self conscious, non-ironic way. Some people feel that social conservatives and economic conservatives are natural fellow travelers, but it always seemed like a devil's deal to me.
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Partly it started in the 60's, as the deeply religious south shifted from the Democratic to the Republican party because of the Civil Rights movement. That kind of got the ball going I think.... But the recent history that has had the most to do with this in my opinion, centers around Francis Schaeffer, an evangelical theologian, who consciously decided that American Religious Conservatives were too a-political, and so went looking for a cause which would inspire religious conservatives to get involved in politics, and express their cultural power. He was smart enough to realize that to do so effectively they would have to make major inroads in one of the two political parties, so as to allow for real, long term, political change in a direction acceptable to religious conservatives.
In the late 70's he chose as the cause, Abortion, and as the party, the Republicans.
Mainstream republicans get something out of the bargain, in that they can stump about something besides protecting business... lets face it, protecting business is often an unpalatable position to have to defend to the electorate. Pro-business economic policies were there to convince the elite, and social conservative bible thumping was there to appeal to blue collar voters if and when repeating "jobs!" over and over lost its luster. ( In this, I see a real parallel between the present Republican party and the Wahhabist movements in Saudi Arabia. The latter's inception was about maintaining the power of the house of Saud, to drown out notice of political corruption with calls for religious purity.)
Meanwhile, religious conservatives got access to a party political infrastructure that their previously a-political stance made alien to them.
In a way it seems natural that after such a merging, people would try to strengthen that synthesis with ideas like Prosperity Gospel and the like. But ultimately, there's just something so internally contradictory about a party that embraces both Ayn Rand and Jesus Christ in such a non-self conscious, non-ironic way. Some people feel that social conservatives and economic conservatives are natural fellow travelers, but it always seemed like a devil's deal to me.