"One of the concerns I have about the shape of the postmodern or emerging church is what could technically be described as a correlationist model. 'Correlation' refers to a theological strategy whose pedigree is distinctly modern. It operates as follows: beginning with a certain confidence in the findings of a secular discipline - whether philosophy, psychology, history, or sociology - a correlationist theology adapts this neutral or scientific framework as a foundation and then correlates Christian theological claims with the facts discovered by secular science. For instance, Bultmann accepted the neutral (supposed) facts of Heidegger's existential account of the human condition and then correlated Christian theology to fit this model. Or liberation theology took the findings of Marxist sociology as disclosing the scientific facts about human community and then correlated Christian theology with this "scientific" foundation. In every case, correlationist theology has a deeply apologetic interest: ultimately, the goal is to make Christianity intelligible or rational to a given culture (even if it operates on the assumption of a transcultural, neutral, objective reason). In the process, however, primacy is given not to the particularity of Christian revelation or the confessional tradition but rather to the poles of science, experience, and so on, which are taken to be neutral 'givens.'"
James K.A. Smith, "Who's Afraid of Postmodernism?: Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church." (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006), 123-124.