I opened my recent Patheos piece on Christians and the “Occupy” protests by noting the proclivity for some leaders to seek cultural relevance by uncritically embracing political movements and trends. This shows that it is mon temptation to allow worldly perspectives and ideologies to determine the shape of our faith rather than the other way around.

A good example of this uncritical stance toward the Occupy movement appears in a Marketplace report from last week, “Preaching the Occupy gospel — or not.” As Mitchell Hartman introduces Rev. Chuck Currie, “Forgive me for what is quite possibly blaspheming, but to hear some preachers from the pulpit these days, you’d think the arrival of Occupy Wall Street is tantamount to the Second Coming.” Currie goes on to, in Harman’s words, draw “a direct scriptural line from the Old Testament… to Occupy.” (One of menters on my Patheos piece likewise draws a direct line from the parable of the Good Samaritan to a moral obligation for Christians to engage in Occupy protests.)

For more on the chaplains of the protest movement, check out this NYT piece.

In the meantime, you should also read this more measured response to the Occupy movement at RELEVANT magazine by Alex Marshall. Alex outlines two important ways the church can act positively in engaging the Occupiers, including recognizing that “the Church has the opportunity to act as a ‘laboratory’ for experimenting in solutions to society’s problems.”

Or as Jesus puts it, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”