Christian righties push US aid agenda?

The July 2 edition of The Economist has an interesting take on US-UK positions on aid to Africa. The magazine's Lexington column ("Right On", p. 34, paid registration required) suggests that, whereas British moves toward alleviating suffering are largely associated with the secular left (in concert - at least for the moment - with a center-left government), in America it’s the bible-thumping conservatives who are pushing the issue. Or, as Lexington puts it:

If the European campaign for aid for Africa is dominated by bleeding-heart liberals, poring over the Guardian and L’Humanite, the American campaign is dominated by Bible-believing Christians . . . In Europe, the campaign to help Africa is fronted by a foul-mouthed Irish rock star. In America, you are more likely to run into Sam Brownback, a fiercely conservative senator from Kansas, who has sponsored legislation condemning Sudanese slavery, or Chuck Colson, a born-again Nixon operative who served time for Watergate and wants American Christians to recover the heritage of William Wilberforce.

The article is clear that these pressures are coming not from liberal mainline Protestant churches, but from the more radical, evangelist right. And it notes the implications on American foreign policy of having these evangelical Protestant churches pull the Republican Party to the “left” on international issues. It also notes that “In the perennial battle between Kissingerian realists and neoconservative idealists in Washington, they help tip the balance towards idealism.”

This article surprise and intrigued me. The American campaign "dominated" by the Christian right? Really? Why haven't I heard about this? What I find interesting about this perspective is that it’s pretty rare in the American MSM. As far as I'd been aware, the prism through which the American end of this effort has been viewed in the media is that of another effort pushed by the bleeding-heart, leftie-conscientious celebrity elite (Madonna, Susan Sarandon-Tim Robbins, Brad Pitt et al). The idea that the real power behind the American effort comes from the right, not the left, comes a bit out-of-left-field to me (although I was also shocked to see rightie Pat Robertson appearing with all these other lefties in a VH-1/MTV ad/trailer on the fight against African poverty - and then I read that Pat Robertson and George Clooney had gone on ABC's "Nightline" together back in late June, to encourage Americans to get involved). Am I missing something here? Or is this possibly a new example of the US media's secular orientation blinding them (and me!) to how the Christian right really works in the United States? Right now, I don't know.