Up until a couple of months ago (bloody Fox buyout), I worked for Beliefnet for many years so I had a chance to study this at length.

First off, let's be clear: We're not talking about the majority of Christians. Roughly 80% of the US describes itself as Christian in some form but only around 25% are Biblical literalists. So there's about 55% of the country who are Christian in some form but aren't represented by people like Pat Robertson. Nor is the problem fundementalism in itself. Both the Amish and Quakers are fundementalists but neither feel any compulsion to tell others how to live their lives.

Now, I'm not Christian (I'm actually a Luciferian Satanist) but I have read the Bible several times in several editions and the values espoused by the type of fundie you're talking about are a long way from what Jesus actually taught. Jesus taught compassion ("What is done to the least of these), tolerance (the Samaritan), church-state seperation ("Render unto Caesar") and what economic views he expressed are closest to a kind of proto-socialism. I don't need to show you how the views of teh Religious Right conflicts with those.

And the reason is because they aren't drawn to Christianity by it's teachings. Rather, what you have in a group of people who feel alienated by modernity and who are also what Altemeyer described as "authoritarian followers". The uncertainty and change of modern society leaves them feeling alienated and so, they seek to cling to something which is, in their view, certain and unchanging - fundementalist Christianity. They choose Christianity purely because it's the dominant faith in the US. If they were raised in Israel, they'd be Jewish. If they were raised in, say, the UAE, they'd be Muslim. But their's is a form of Christianity based far more in politics than in faith.

Both Frank Schaffer (from the religious side) and David Brock (from the political arm) have written about how the movement we refer to as the Religious Right became, during the eighties and early nineties, a subsection of the Republican party. How positions on things like taxation were based not on the teachings of Jesus but on a pre-existing conservative ideaology which would then be supported by a few Bible passages twisted out of context and meaning. Essentially, they're the American Christian version of the nationalist Islamic groups which sprang up across the MidEast in the seventies and eighties (NOT terrorists, they're something different). For this nationalism, I call them the Cultus Americanus.

The Cultus Americanus (one could also call them Reaganists since they're feelings about him are about one step from outright idolotry) pay lip service to Jesus but their teachings are far more influenced by an amalgamation of ultraright nationalism, ultraconservative social views and lasseiz faire economics. None of these are unique to the Cultus but the Cultus stamps "JESUS APPROVED" on the package in order to sell it to the masses. Essentially, the Cultus raises American Exceptionalism to a faith in it's own right. Their aims are not to be better people or to have a guide for one's own life (as normal faiths provide) but to tell others how to live their lives. They don't want the kingdom of God, they want to inherit the earth.