Recent reports from the National Church Life Survey show that in the last decade of the twentieth century church attendance in Australia was in steady decline. Mainstream Protestant denominations experienced a decline that was by-and-large offset by increases in Evangelical and Pentecostal churches, but this was not enough to counter the decline in the Roman Catholic church, which accounts for half of Australia’s Christians (Bellamy and Castle, 2004: 7-8). While the Evangelical offset of mainstream Protestant decline may indicate that Australian Christians are changing denominations, research shows these churches (such as the Assemblies of God, the Christian City Churches and the Christian Revival Crusade) have the highest incidence of “drifting out”, i.e. of people leaving these churches and forsaking church attendance altogether (Sterland, Powell et al., 2006: 12-13). Despite immigration’s account for growth of other religions, like Islam, it appears that Australia is an increasingly secular nation.

Theorists such as Bauman (1998: 70) would attribute this decline to late modern culture’s call for peak experiences but desire to keep religious institutions away from them. For Casanova (1994: 40-42), the “privatisation” of religion is the product of an ideological campaign of modernity, both for freedom of conscience from ecclesial control, and for the progression of institutional differentiation for the capitalist economy. Casanova sees the persistence of the churches to maintain a presence in the public sphere as not a resistance to secularisation but a “deprivatisation” of religion in moral response to capitalism, consumerist worldviews or their threats to traditional worldviews (1994: 228).

Turner’s secularisation theory aligns with that of Casanova in that he sees the privatisation of religion as the result of the modernist campaign to relegate institutions founded on “ineffable” truths to the private sphere for the benefit of modern democracy and liberty.

In a democratic environment, the very idea that some truths are ineffable contradicts the ethos of modern society in which everybody assumes a right to understand or at least to have the relevant information. Democracy tends to promote plain speech and political campaigns are based on personalities and slogans and not only policies. The control of ineffable knowledge is compromised and the whole idea of hierarchically organized wisdom evaporates. We are moving from the age of revelation to the age of information where everything is, at least in principle, effable. The resulting crisis of authority is perhaps the real meaning of secularization [...].

(2008: 221)

He departs from Casanova’s theory in his understanding of the re-entrance of Christianity in the public sphere. For Turner, modern public religion is “low-intensity”, favouring the practical, attractive and therapeutic at the expense of “authentic and viable forms of personal piety” (2008: 232). Even religion that appears to challenge consumer culture, like Fundamentalism, enters the public sphere as a marketplace, “selling a lifestyle based on special diets, alternative education, health regimes and mentalities” (2008: 233). Even if (post)modern, individualist, and consumerist society has allowed religion to speak its values, it has determined the conditions on which it can communicate.

The emerging church movement is seen in the context of religious “deprivatisation” and the conditions with which Christianity is allowed a public face. Driscoll (2006) identifies the emerging church movement as the third and last in a series of models, based on their level of engagement in the public sphere. Traditional expressions of Christianity, such as Catholicism and mainstream Protestantism, is labelled “Church 1.0”, that claim to retain their privileged place in modern culture, though have failed to retain an authoritative voice in postmodern culture. “Church 2.0”, appealing to public audiences and engaging in a “culture war” to regain the lost position of cultural privilege, and managed as businesses that market spiritual goods and services (Driscoll, 2006: 87-88).

The emerging church is model “3.0”, that accepts in a postmodern and pluralistic society the “culture war” is won only at the expense of authentic spirituality, and therefore not worth fighting (Driscoll, 2006: 88). For Brian McLaren, a popular American voice of the movement, the emerging church seeks an alternative to the secular dilemma, where Christians choose either “a private, personal spirituality unconnected to public life” or “a public civil religion that compromises with partisan politics” (Streett, 2006: 11).