Conservative chicken or the egg?

I've recently been trying to figure out which of these two scenarios has happened in the last couple years: did the conservative christian movement take over the Republican party, or did the Republican party high-jack the conservative christian movement? I remember when I was growing up that being a Christian did not automatically mean that you were a Republican. It still doesn't, but that perception is now the dominant view in the US. The Republican party once stood for smaller government, smaller budgets, and keeping the government out of individual lives as much as possible. Now the Republican party creates who new departments of the government, increases our deficit, and legislates morality at every turn. Just five years ago, that would been unthinkable for the Republicans.

John Danforth, a former US senator from Missouri, a former US ambassador to the UN and an Episcopal minister wrote a scathing editorial in which he argues that the Republicans need to stop focusing on this religious agenda and get back to their core principles.
"The problem is not with people or churches that are politically active. It is with a party that has gone so far in adopting a sectarian agenda that it has become the political extension of a religious movement." - John Danforth

You know it's getting bad when a Minister tells you to that you are focusing too much on religion.