Posted on December 31, 2009 - by Calvin L. Smith

Predictions for the New Year and Forthcoming Decade

Not wanting to be left out of the prediction business so ubiquitous this time of the year, over at my blog site I’ve offered my own tongue-in-cheek predictions for the forthcoming year and decade, with entries for the World Stage, Politics, Society, Entertainment and the Media. Find a sample below, with my predictions for the latter. Happy New Year!

ENTERTAINMENT
Simon Cowell becomes a born again Christian and launches a new TV talent show to find the best preacher in Britain (he calls it the Homily Factor). Although auditions tend to be pretty long, with various wacky competitors (for example, the illiterate, the theologically-untrained, the plain boring, those who just like to hear the sound of their own voice, those who preach unnecessarily long sermons, or the nutcases who shouldn’t be let loose anywhere near a pulpit) the show immediately becomes a runaway success, with Brits by their millions tuning in to hear the finalists. Panelists consist of internationally respected leading world preachers. As a result of the show a new Top 40 preachers’ chart is launched and soon compilation albums of the best sermons hit the stores, with titles such as Now That’s What I Call Preaching 43, Totally Preaching 12, and for the followers of the prosperity televangelists who gather yearly at venues in Ibiza, the Ministry of Pound. Inevitably, Homily Factor captures the No. 1 sermon each Christmas, much to the consternation of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Elsewhere in the entertainment world, Richard Dawkins writes yet another book, this time positing the possibility of Intelligent Design after all (though he maintains it could only possibly be by intelligent aliens). Unfortunately for him some 50% of the population remain of the view that Dawkins does not exist.

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