Our thoughts and prayers go out to all those affected by the appalling violence at the Boston Marathon today.

Let us turn now to our Hubris Corner. I’ve decided to make another of my legendary long-term predictions.

As you may recall, I have (or believe I have) a kind of knack for spotting long-term social trends. I’m no good at picking lottery numbers (actually I’ve never tried), and I generally get elections wrong. But over the long haul I seem to be able to sight along the lines of current events and predict what’s coming in a decade or two. I have a good record with that sort of thing. Or so I believe.

So here’s what happened. I woke up from a dream early Saturday morning filled with a sense of conviction about the future of the liberal churches and their seminaries.

I speculated a while back about why liberal churches even exist anymore, since their theology makes piety unnecessary and their social views turn charity over to the government. I read an article recently – wish I remembered where – which pointed out another aspect of the same situation. That was that, while conservative churches seem to be winning what might be called the “church wars” (in that conservative churches are experiencing growth, at least in some areas, while liberal churches are steadily declining everywhere), the liberal churches are winning – or have won – the culture war. That means that while a majority of the people in churches may believe what conservatives believe, the majority of people not in churches believe what the liberals believe. And there are more people not in churches than in churches.

So will the liberal churches just die, like a salmon that spawns and expires?

No, not if my prediction is true.

I think what we’ll see in a decade or two is liberal churches (and seminaries) adopting Islam. This would be consistent with two of the major tenets of current liberalism:

1) The West and its traditions are always in the wrong and responsible for everything evil in the world, making submission morally appropriate, and

2) Christian doctrine is of no importance, so long as some sort of pro forma respect is directed toward Jesus (which Islam certainly does).

The only problem I can see with this scenario is that it will be a problem for them to reconcile this move with two things liberal churches actually do believe in today – feminism and the high moral dignity of homosexuality.

But they’ll figure something out. Squaring the circle is what they do.

I claim no divine inspiration for this insight, if such it is. It’s just me making a prediction.

But watch for it.