Must religious beliefs correlate with political and economic beliefs and vice versa?

I once heard someone say something along the lines of this: "Republicans being for survival of the fittest in the marketplace should realize that their beliefs actually support the theory of Evolution, if only they were smart enough to realize that". In the context of the conversation, this person's point was that there was a contradiction between being a free-market capitalist that believes the strong companies survive while the weak ones fail, and being a Christian that doesn't accept the theory of Evolution. If you think that's a contradiction, the reverse must also be a contradiction: believing in Evolution but at the same time being against winners and losers in the market place, creating safety nets to make things "fair". Each side of the argument appears equally guilty of a contradiction, but does one belief really have anything to do with the other? And aren't there other options?

How did this ever come about anyway, why are religious folks for smaller government and evolutionists for more government? Shouldn't these be backwards, shouldn't we have religious people wanting fairness and safety nets, while Evolution-believers be for less government, letting the strong survive and weak die out?