The False Light: How “Family Values” Became a Mask for Racial Preservation \ stacker news ~Christianity

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The False Light: How “Family Values” Became a Mask for Racial Preservation

33 sats \ 11 comments \ @jamalderrick 11 Nov Christianity

When the church trades prophetic witness for political favor, it always loses both.

The Pioneer Fund, born in the 1930s to promote eugenics, spent decades funding “scientific” racism. It bankrolled FAIR, the group that built today’s anti-immigration movement.

Then came Thomas F. Ellis, Jesse Helms’s strategist, sitting on both the Pioneer Fund and the Council for National Policy (CNP). Through him, the ideology crossed the river from race science to religion.

Inside the CNP, the fear of racial dilution got rebranded as “family values.” Leaders like Jerry Falwell Sr., Pat Robertson, and James Dobson carried it into pulpits and TV studios, preaching cultural defense as if it were Gospel truth. “Protect our way of life” replaced “Love your neighbor.”

Ellis’s quiet bridge made hierarchy sound holy. It baptized exclusion in biblical language. And half a century later, we’re still worshiping at that same altar, the one built on fear of losing power.

But the Kingdom of God was never about preservation. Jesus crossed every border. He touched the untouchable and shattered every purity code. So when the state fears prayer for immigrants, or the church mirrors that fear, 1 Peter 4:17 rings loud:

“For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God.”

We don’t need a moral crusade focused on others. We need repentance within, and the courage to call fear what it is: unbelief in disguise.

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0 sats \ 3 replies \ @Slestak_Jack 15 Nov

I have done some reading on eugenics and it's a long way from the current debates about immigration. Does Dearborn Michigan pose a problem for you? I'm curious, as a measure of where you stand.

What do you think is good measured approach to immigration policy?

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @jamalderrick OP 15 Nov

Not at all, Dearborn isn’t a “problem” to me. What I’m unpacking is how certain Christian-Right networks train people to interpret any demographic shift as a spiritual threat.

I recently left a church after realizing its election message wasn’t organic. The pastor openly said he leaned on two national figures plugged into the modern Christian-Right political machine — one a Family Research Council/TPUSA Faith partner fined for partisan preaching, the other invited to the Trump White House and known for telling Christians they “can’t vote left.” That’s when the language clicked.

The rhetoric wasn’t coming from scripture; it was coming from a well-developed political-theology pipeline that began decades ago. The same pipeline seeded by groups like the Pioneer Fund, which turned racial hierarchy → moral hierarchy → “spiritual warfare.” That’s where fear narratives about places like Dearborn get manufactured.

And the irony is, the Founders already answered this whole debate. Article 11 of the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli: “The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”

That was unanimously approved by the Senate and signed by President John Adams.

My focus isn’t left vs right. It's tracing how modern political messaging gets repackaged as gospel.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Slestak_Jack 15 Nov

The kingdom of God has a border.

I give side-eye to those who critique the religious right, but leave the religious left alone. Far more concerning to me is the religious left.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @jamalderrick OP 15 Nov

I’m not defending the left, and to be clear, I’m concerned when any political alignment mistakes its platform for the gospel itself. I’m recognizing a 90-year pipeline — starting with the Pioneer Fund in the 1930s — that pushed scientific racism into the New Right and eventually into parts of white evangelical political messaging. What I’m seeing today isn’t random; it’s the result of that long process finally surfacing.

And for what it’s worth, the borders of the Kingdom of God don’t look anything like the borders of earthly nations. The Kingdom welcomes the helpless, the homeless, the immigrant, the poor, the downtrodden, the sinner, and people of every nation. That’s its border policy.

0 sats \ 6 replies \ @beyond_turbulence 11 Nov

Thanks ! Subgratance ? #1272710

The Sanctuary Coup

History’s oldest hustle: not a limp **** pimp?

When fear ain’t in this house trades prophecy for power —and power always trades back a corpse, death and gold.

The playbook:

Take an ideology — fear, control, purity.

Rebrand it — “family values,” “heritage,” “safety.”

Baptize it, sacrifice it in holy water, and call it divine strategy.

The church’s favorite metaprogram:

Away: “We’re under attack!” (fear).

Towards: “Preserve what’s ours.” (control).

Outcome (attache): The Kingdom traded for a fortress.

The compass? Still points toward “radical love” — borderless evil, reckless purity, freedom masquerading as liberty.

The judgment? An internal alchemical process of transformation ! Call fear by name, in a cartoon voice! Call out capitulation!

This isn’t faith anymore— it’s a panic attack from an Apache or Anasazi with liturgical precision like a watcher or witness or thrice ... Hard or soft politics ?

Every altar of organizational power is a mirage like a 501(c)(3) license or permit .

Every real God still wanders the wilderness like an alligator with no chance of compromise —untamed like a jaguar, unbranded like a Mexican grey wolf, unbought like mountain lion wandering around the gates!

⸻

0 sats \ 5 replies \ @Slestak_Jack 15 Nov

"Take an ideology — fear, control, purity. Rebrand it — “family values,” “heritage,” “safety.”

I fail to see the connection between these clearly.

family values= mother/father, not to be redefined with any gender narrative.

Heritage= haven't heard this one, but spiritual heritage makes sense. guard the faith. ------------"hold fast to that which you first believed"

Safety= Secure your family and your faith.

I can understand fear and control, those actually go together. But purity? What's the rebrand of purity?

0 sats \ 4 replies \ @jamalderrick OP 15 Nov

The Pioneer Fund’s idea of “purity” originally meant racial purity: keeping America’s bloodline white. Over the decades, that language was rebranded inside the New Right as “moral purity,” “family values,” and “protecting heritage.” It’s the same underlying instinct to preserve a certain kind of American identity, just rewritten in spiritual terms.

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @Slestak_Jack 15 Nov

It's not the same. It's using the same word with entirely different meanings. Preserving the American values of liberty and human freedom are worth defending. Those get confused with things like patriotism, which gets defined as support for the military and empire.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @jamalderrick OP 15 Nov

I hear you pushing back on the connection, and that’s the exact challenge: the rebranding works because the new terms sound unobjectionable. No one announces ‘we’re preserving racial hierarchy.’ They say ‘we’re protecting family values’ or ‘defending our heritage.’ The ideology gets laundered through respectable-sounding language. My point isn’t to adjudicate which version of ‘American values’ is correct. It’s to document how a specific ideological project—traceable through organizations, funding, and messaging—has moved from explicit racial language to coded cultural language, and how that shows up in religious spaces. The gospel is ‘come as you are.’ But when churches start preaching that demographic change is spiritual warfare, we’re seeing that pipeline at work.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Slestak_Jack 23h

I think when you have coordinated programs running thru the UN, Soros funded groups, USAID, Catholic Charities, and Lutheran Social Services, doing human trafficking then I think it's fair to call that spiritual warfare. They are doing this to overthrow the western countries and their values.

What makes you think that when they say "family values" the don't just simply mean family values? The democrat party and the leftist orgs are clearly trying to undermine families don't you agree?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @jamalderrick OP 22h

No. I’ll leave this part of the conversation with this:

When it comes to the church of YHWH Saves, the Messiah, the Anointed One, I’m reminded that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, or any of the groups people try to turn into enemies.

That’s where I stand.

I’ve written more here for anyone who wants the deeper context: #1261531

I appreciate your thoughts and your engagement in good faith. God speed.