Today, when born-again Christians hold up posters at rallies that read, “Thank you, Lord Jesus, for President Trump,” when they say they are sick of false promises from supposedly pious presidents on abortion or gay marriage and just want a strong man in the White House who can stop illegal immigration or keep us safe or just “smash things,” what are they saying? They are saying that their political identity has trumped their religious identity. They are saying that they are conservatives first and Christians second.

This is no less true of the candidates who claim to speak for them. In an interview on the cusp of the New Hampshire primary, Ted Cruz told reporters, “I’m a Christian first, American second, conservative third and Republican fourth.”

If you look at Cruz’s actual record, that’s nearly impossible to believe. Cruz’s father is a traveling evangelist and a preacher of Dominionist theology who believes that Christians like his son must take dominion over “seven mountains”: family, religion, education, media, entertainment, business and government. Cruz’s own hierarchy of identities is not easy to sort out, because like other white evangelicals he interprets his four identity markers—as a Christian, an American, a conservative, and a Republican—as roughly equivalent. Unlike George Washington, who saw a clear conflict between being an American and being a member of a political party, Cruz sees no tension between his Americanism and his Republicanism. And unlike Moore and Mohler, he sees no tension between the Bible and contemporary American conservatism. Still, it seems plain that Cruz is a conservative first, an American second, a Republican third, and a Christian fourth.

In fact, it is exceedingly difficult to find any moment when Reagan, Bush, or any of today’s Republican candidates put biblical faith over conservative principles. Abortion, for example, is never mentioned in the Bible. When the Supreme Court handed down a decision in Roe v. Wade, in 1973, the Baptist Press praised it for “advancing the cause of religious liberty, human equality, and justice.” Jerry Falwell did not preach his first anti-abortion sermon until 1978—when the nascent Religious Right was casting about for ways to attack Democrats as moral relativists stuck in the “Bad Sixties.” The Southern Baptist Convention did not oppose abortion until 1980. Even Rubio’s statement in a New Hampshire debate that he “would rather lose an election than be wrong on the issue of life” seems designed to win an election.