Let me preface by acknowledging that not all Fundamentalist Christians are conservatives, and not all conservatives are Fundamentalist Christians. But you must admit there is a significant correlation between the two, to the extent that the Republican Party must cater to their religious views to retain power.
That being said, why would conservatives embrace a religion that requires them to give all that they own to the poor?
The inconsistency of the two philosophies is profound and twofold: conservativism espouses the acquistion of wealth through hard work and self reliance, and eschews gratuitous welfare to the poor that does not require them to work for it in return. So why would they gravitate to a religion that is anti-materialistic, requires them to abandon their wealth and reward those who don’t work hard enough to make it on their own?
**Granted, it doesn’t say it is impossible, but the analogy is clear; renounce materialism or face eternal damnation.
On these boards and elsewhere I have seen conservatives struggle to reconcile their own materialism with the commands of Jesus, relying on semantic tricks and creative interpretations to allow them have their cake and eat it too. But why would they let themselves in for accusations of hypocrisy in the first place by adopting a religion that is diametrically opposed to their acquisitive desires?
Why would a conservative, whose philosophy espouses responsibility for one’s actions and punishment of evildoers, adopt a religion that requires him to forgive his enemies? The stress of the two competing and opposing philosophies would seem so great as to cancel each other out. Does it spring from low self-esteem, which drives them to adopt a religion that creates self-loathing?
How is this reconciled with the conservative desire to seek out the evil doers of the world and exact retribution for their evil? Tolerance, humility and forebearance are not qualities one normally associates with conservatism, yet they are exactly what Jesus demands of his followers, so what is the attraction of Christianity to conservatives? I should think they would want a religion that commanded the righteous seek out evil and destroy it, to acquire as much wealth as possible, and punish in the name of God those who committed the sin of poverty.
So, are Christian conservatives unrepentant hyprocrites, or are they just a little schizophrenic?