Thank you so much for this insightful look into Bass' work and our possible future; your presentation helped me to get something of a grasp about the changes I have been noticing as well.
What immediately strikes me about the character of this "new awakening" is its near perfect reflection of Alcoholics Anonymous. Several known authors today, most notably Richard Rohr, see this international and highly popular movement started in the late 30s as epitomizing what the Emergent Church is looking for and what the Early Church looked like: 

Small, locally-based groups, where community is central and vital, expressing a "positive experiential spirituality" about a God of their own understanding, tolerant of whatever that higher power may be. In almost all meetings, people openly confess and testify, honestly revealing themselves to their peers, both for their own sake and that of those present. And in many meetings you will hear many members describe themselves as "recovering Catholics," eschewing and shedding the "deadening institutional belief-oriented religion."
 
Is it possible that God had this in mind all along, that this is the return of Christ.  What and who better fits 1Cor1:27 than alcoholics and addicts: "God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.   God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things...to nullify the things that are..."