He makes many an evangelical wince. Some he downright ticks off. But as he and his fellow emerging church leaders talk energetically about seeing the Gospel in fresh ways, people are listening.

Special Contributor Lesa Engelthaler spoke with Mr. McLaren by cellphone as he took a walk in his Maryland neighborhood.

Here are excerpts:

Question: Your academic training is in English, not theology. How did you end up a pastor?

Answer: I became a committed Christian in the '70s through the Jesus Movement, never planning on becoming a pastor. I wanted to be a college English teacher. If anyone had been my model back in those days, it would have been C.S. Lewis.

I was fortunate enough to get to work as an English professor at some secular universities, and while we were doing that, my wife and I opened our home for a little Bible study, which eventually became a house church. I was devoting about 20 hours a week to church-related work, and as it grew, they asked me to lead.

The interesting convergence is that when I was in graduate school in the '70s, postmodern philosophy really hit the American academy, and it came in through English departments and literary criticism. So I was exposed very early on. When I started to understand some of the questions being raised, I remember thinking that the Christian faith doesn't have good answers to this yet, and I hope someone else figures out the answers.

Fast-forward about 12 years. In the '90s, I realized that many of the spiritual seekers coming to my church were asking those same questions, so suddenly it became my problem. (Laughs.)

Question: Define postmodern.

Answer: In the last two decades, the word "post" has been stuck onto lots of words to describe our times. A number of us felt that there is a significant change going on, that we are moving beyond the intellectual cultural territory that we've been roughly in for the last 300 to 500 years. This has stimulated different responses among Christian leaders.

Some have taken a kind of circle-the-wagons mentality that says we've got to oppose these changes at any cost. Others of us have said that this is where we live, so we need to find ways to be faithful to God in these changes – philosophically, culturally, even economically [in] a global economy, and militarily [in] a world of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.

Question: And what does "emerging" mean in the emerging church movement?

Answer: Emerging means what is changing has not fully formed yet.

We all have a sense that we live in two worlds, especially here in America. We live in a very strong, striving, modern world, and yet it feels that we are also extending into this new, postmodern world.

One of the huge changes we're dealing with is from a world dominated by white people, Europeans and Americans, to a world that is a partnership between Africans, Latin Americans, Asians and Euro-Americans. We want to get as many of these voices at the table and be listening to one another and actually appreciate differences of opinion, because they make you think about things you wouldn't have thought of otherwise.

Question: You write about A New Kind of Christian. What does he or she look like, and what's wrong with the "old kind" of Christian?

Answer: There's nothing wrong with the old kind. I don't want to criticize people, but when we're moving into a new culture, we have to respond to that culture appropriately.

Over most of U.S. history, white, English-speaking Christians have been the dominant force. But now your children attend public school with a Buddhist sitting on one side and a Muslim on the other side, and a few kids from atheist families in the room, too. Learning how to live and practice our faith in a pluralistic context puts a new kind of Christian in America, having to live much more like the Christian who lives in India or Turkey or Nigeria.

Question: If we were to take a field trip to an emerging church, what would we find?

Answer: My good friend Leonard Sweet has an acrostic, EPIC, that describes it.

E – experiential. It is not just about listening and thinking, but there's the idea of "let's enter into worship as an experience." An increased emphasis on the senses, not just the rational faculties – so emerging churches actually seem kind of ancient. They are rediscovering liturgical practices such as candles, incense and communion.

P – participatory. The idea that worship is not just something you observe, like watching television. You really participate. For example, in our church, an important part of our worship is a period of about 20 minutes in which there are stations around the room where people might go to ask for prayer, or write down a prayer or a poem, or make their financial offering, or seek communion.

I – image-based. The idea here is not just words for the ears, but an increased emphasis on things you can see. Because of digital technology you have the capacity to project images, show artwork, use film and video.

C – communal. A strong emphasis on community. People are saying, "We don't just want to attend a service and look at the back of people's heads."

Question: Your views have stirred up quite a few evangelical leaders. What's their beef with you?

Answer: Unfortunately, some of the disagreement springs from misunderstanding. A well-known Baptist leader wrote a strong critique of my last book, saying it is obvious I'm a relativist. There is a chapter in the book that gives reasons why relativism is not the solution.

Many conservative Christians feel that the interests of America and the interest of the kingdom of God are closely aligned – they might even say the interests of the Republican Party. (Laughs). I think that is a deep area of tension. Many of us certainly love our country, but we don't think that the kingdom of God is in the pocket of any political party, or in a nation, or even in Western civilization.

What's been interesting is that I've had a couple of evangelical leaders say, "I don't really like your books. But I wish you well, because I know that my children want nothing to do with the form of church and Christianity that I practice." So, people are kinder to me than you might expect, because they see that something is not working for their kids.

One reason so many kids go to college and move away from their faith is that in their upbringing they only get the bright side of Christian history. Then they go to college and learn about, for example, Christianity and slavery. Maybe they've only heard about how Christians helped end slavery, but not how Christians defended slavery for a long time. In the emergent community, there is the desire to try to be more balanced as we face some of our history's failures.

Question: You write, "Clarity is good but sometimes intrigue may be even more precious; clarity tends to put an end to further thinking." Explain this.