#politico-ecclesiastical

[fideidefenswhore]

An interdict on England was a serious possibility in the 1530s [...] but the context of Henry's crisis was the fragmentation of humanism, the advent of the Reformation, a crescendo of anticlericalism at the inns of court, Anne Boleyn's support for reform, and the formation of court factions sustained by politico-religous ideology after Wolsey's removal. It was these catalysts that fused Henry VIII's interest in 'imperial' kingship with his demand for a divorce: the outcome was a political and ecclesiastical revolution which, thanks to his second chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, Henry enforced throughout his dominions.

Tudor England, John Guy

[lightholme]

This is a great topic, and I agree a lot of the other responses here have missed

Your primary misconception revolves around American Christianity. You could write volumes on this topic. Indeed, volumes have been written about this topic. American Christianity has a unique and complicated history, beginning with the First Great Awakening

in the 1730s, before the United States was even formed. This movement established two major trends: the dominance of Protestantism over Catholicism and the emphasis on individual piety over communitarianism. The

Second Great Awakening

drove this message even further, centering the individual conversion experience (Salvation) as the most important goal of Christianity. This early emphasis on individualism and the congregational polity of Protestant denominations is key to understanding American Christianity. It allowed American Christian doctrine to readily adapt to the needs and wants of congregations without the restraints of hierarchical authority.

Case in point, nearly 100 years later: a schism within the Baptist denomination over the issue of slavery. With a simple break, the Southern Baptist denomination was able to codify the supremacy of the white race within their official dogma, morphing church teachings to match the cultural preferences of their adherents.

Fast forward another 100 years and we have the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy

, another church split, this time based on a popular rejection of scientific and rationalist interpretation of Biblical scripture. While the modernists largely won the control of mainline protestant institutions, congregations fled en masse to the more conservative denominations, including the Southern Baptists. Through their defeats in ecclesiastical authority and public opinion from spectacles such as in the infamous

Scopes Monkey Trial

, combined with a doctrinal shift from eschatological

postmillennialism

to

premillenialism

, conservative evangelicals began to retreat from the political square in favor of maintaining separatist cultures where they could bide their time until the Second Coming of Jesus, ushering in the Rapture and Great Tribulation.

In the background, meanwhile, American business tycoons were already plotting a political resurgence for American Christianity. I can't possibly go over all the twists and turns in this story, so I highly recommend that you read the book One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America by Kevin Kruse, a professor of history at Princeton University. Here's an abridged version Kruse wrote for Politico. In short, business leaders in America waged a massive PR campaign in the 1940s and 50s to tie American "patriotism," along with its implicit rejection of "godless" socialism, to Christian piety and devotion. And it largely worked--American Christians began to view Freedom as a central tenet of the Christian faith, which of course included the freedom of markets (unregulated capitalism). The primary achievement of this movement was the election of US President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a Republican.

The political ascendancy of the Christian Right reached its peak in the 1980s thanks mostly to the work of one man--Jerry Falwell--and his organization, the Moral Majority

. While evangelicals of the 1920s saw cultural decline as an inevitable spiral that would culminate in the rise of the Anti-Christ, they soon realized the difficulty of standing idly by, waiting for the Rapture while witnessing (what they considered) the deterioration of societal morality. Yet for some time, they felt reluctant to actually do anything about it, scarred by the memories of their past defeats. Falwell largely reversed this perception by claiming that, in fact, a majority of Americans--a Moral Majority--were equally incensed by this societal decline and could reverse it if only they were able to stand together. Falwell's movement was wildly successful and mobilized Evangelicals all over the country to vote their "morals" at the ballot box. This phenomenon is also sometimes referred to as the "culture wars" because it was framed around issues of lifestyle and behavior--school prayer, abortion, homosexuality, and traditional gender roles. The primary political achievement of this movement was the election of US President Ronald Reagan, a Republican.

Now let's summarize: American Christianity is fiercely individualistic and has long served as an amplifying force for contemporary cultural preferences rather than a moderating force. For instance, Christianity in the United States led the way in justifying the institutions of slavery and, later, segregation. Through movements in the mid-to-late 20th century, American Christianity slowly abandoned white supremacy as its leading cause and adopted issues of Freedom (a reaction to the New Deal and later the Cold War) and cultural conservatism as driving political concerns. And throughout all of this--thought mostly post-Civil Rights--the Republican Party served as the vehicle through which to achieve these purposes.

This should answer most of your points. There is no contradiction between Republican ideology and American Christian ideology because they are in fact one and the same. They evolved together, as one. Republicans support capitalism and gun rights because American Christianity believes in Freedom and the preservation of the cultural status quo, of which gun rights are foundational (see: 2nd Amendment).

Your statement "Republicans advocate for individualism, something alien to things like traditions and religions which they also promote." is frankly laughable to anyone familiar with the history of American religion. Individualism is rooted in our DNA and nowhere more so than in our religion, going back hundreds of years. You are correct in terms of world religion, but that simply does not apply to religion in the United States.