A Usurious Alliance: Evangelical Avarice and Anabaptist Defection

While visiting the BreakPoint website I made another discovery which I must say initially startled me but upon reflection it wasn't too surprising. I noticed the website was promoting Eventide Mutual Funds as a form of Christian investment. That name was familiar to me. I clicked on the link and within a few seconds I had the answer.

It's part of the network of the phony Anabaptist Finny Kuruvilla. John Stonestreet is as always disgusting and I expect error to emanate from him – as he has sold his soul to mammon and power. Like Colson his mentor, he has no truth in him and wisdom flees from his face. The Evangelical movement lives to serve its idols of mammon and power and as such it celebrates the sword and the coin and will bow to any Caesar (no matter how wicked our obscene) that will pay lip service to their sad and misguided cause.

What's surprising is that the Anabaptists are falling prey to this stuff. A couple of years back I wrote about the changes taking place within Anabaptism and Kuruvilla was mentioned as was Stonestreet. I was appalled that he was invited to speak at a conservative Mennonite conference on issues surrounding Christians and technology. I wrote the sponsors but was dismissed with a degree of hostility.

Kuruvilla is promoting a form of Dominionism tailored to the Anabaptist audience. He's a snake and few seem to realize that he in fact represents (in many respects) a repudiation of their heritage. From his embrace and endorsement of usury, to his whitewashing of the nature of the US financial system, he's teaching Anabaptists to abandon their ethics. Once again 'simple concerning evil' has become just plain simple and living in their provincial fog they are seemingly unaware of the larger considerations of the US financial system, the way it makes money, and its effects on people in this country, on communities and family businesses, as well as the poor in all places – but especially in the developing world. The markets represent not just usury and exploitation but a form of violence and they operate under a completely different set of values. Kuruvilla has deceived himself by only investing in certain types of companies but even a quick examination of the fund portfolios calls his ethics into doubt. And then there's the bond markets and all the rest he promotes. So much for antithesis. Kuruvilla might as well tattoo an American flag on his forehead for it's the system he's sold himself to – in the end it's the 'mark' that guides his thoughts and the works of his hands.

The Anabaptist community needs to denounce this man and renounce his teachings. And to this day I cannot understand why men like David Bercot affiliate with him. A man like Bercot should know better.

But everything seems to be is a state of flux and turmoil within the Anabaptist world. And as everyone seems to be chasing the Dominionist-mammon dream it would seem the Anabaptists cannot be excluded. Large swathes of their movement are being transformed into little more than idiosyncratic Evangelicals and are effectively joining the heritage of the Magisterial Reformation. They are literally spitting on the graves of their ancestors even while they pretend to champion their heritage and traditions. Surely such clouded thinking and ethical schizophrenia is a sign of judgment.