Because they're always incredibly nationalist as well. Or "Reaganism" perhaps as their attitude towards him is about one step from outright idolotry.

I'm not Christian but I've actually read the Bible and I think the Biblical character of Jesus was based on a real man, exagerated and mythologised by the passage of the centuries but here's the thing: I've read The Bible, several times and in several editions and the stuff Jesus actually taught doesn't bear much comparison to the values the Cultus Americanus preaches. Jesus taught about things like tolerance and compassion (the Good Samaritan) and church-state seperation ("Render unto Caesar"). What economic views he expressed were closest to a kind of proto-socialism and, all through his teachings, there is a consistent vein of concern for the poor and opressed.

All these things are anathema to the Cultus Americanus. They can try to justify it with absurd wordgames (usually, outright denials of the socialist elements and anti-government ranting) but it seems that what they have constructed is effectively a new religion. One which, like Mormonism, grew out of Christianity but is distinct enough to qualify as it's own's entity. The Cultus Americanus isn't a faith which was brought into politics, it's a faith which exists to provide divine approval for a pre-held political agenda, an intertwining of the religious and political spheres (which worked really well for the Romans).

Frank Schaffer talks about this in Crazy For God, how what started as a religious movement very quickly became a vehical for the right-wing of the Republican party and a method of claiming that God supported your political agenda. David Brock mentions his observations of teh same thing in Blinded By The Right although from a different direction (unlike Schaffer, Brock was part of the political arm, watching this transition from the outside) and what one is left with is the impression of, not just the use of religion to manipulate politics ("Got mit uns") but the creation of a mostly new faith from the deliberate mixing of the two. Think Sean Hannity, the views he expresses are sheer Cultus.

It's fascinating to watch, from a historical and theological basis but terrifying to share a planet with.

The most Christian person I ever knew was a guy called Ralph. He trained to be a priest until he met his wife and, observing that one could not serve two masters, left before taking his vows but retained his faith. His day job is an adviser for the SCAB (Citizen's Advice Beureu, a British institution providing advice about pretty much anything to anyone who asks; the S denotes a branch placed on a college or university campus) and on his days off, you can usually find him assissting some charity or other. We've joked occasionally that the guy is so saintly that he probably has dismembered hitchikers in his freezer. I've known the guy for years. With me, because he knows that I'm interested, we debate theology and history but I've never known him bring the subject up unless someone asks his opinion. Our discussions have gotten to incredibly heated shouting before but when it's over, he'll be happy to shake your hand and share a beer with you. When teh Tube was bombed a couple of years back, he was the first guy I knew trying to help the victims but also the first counselling against an esculation of violence.

Or I think of my Grimmer (grandmother). She was very devoutly Christian and she spent her whole life looking after children. First as a pediatric nurse, then running a home for disabled and disturbed children who'd been taken into care and finally, by being given a grand old Victorian house by the local council and filling it with disabled and disturbed foster kids. Some of those kids went on to be adopted by loving families. Others went on to college or apprenticeships (this was back when an apprenticeship gave you a valuable trade you could make a living from). I know for a fact that it wasn't easy, with the council always shaving allowances and reducing budgets and I know that she drew a great deal of strength and inspiration from her faith but, again, I never heard her preach to anyone or even mention it unless asked. When she died, about five years ago, we tracked down a few dozen of the kids who had passed through her care and some of them had gone on to make grand careers and names in local politics, most had just gone on to have the normal quiet, mostly happy life but all of them remembered her with fondness.

Those are the people I think of as "Christians", that's what I think the term should mean at it's best. A way of living one's own life, not a stick to force other's to live theirs.