Contributing Scholar, Tim Brahun,  graced us with his own 11 Faith-Based or Religious Predictions for 2011 a la those of the CNN belief blog.

In Arabic, insha’Allah, means “God willing,” and is used when expressing hope for the future. I say insha’Allah because “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1, NKJV).  I don’t just have hope for change in 2011, I have faith that this year will bring about the following:

1) Young people, of various faiths and no faith, all across the country, Mobilizing around a social issue on their college campus and Sustaining that impact for the Fall semester as the Better Together Campaign comes to a close.

2) A shift in biblical hermeneutics  that allows more churches to acknowledge, accept and affirm same-sex marriages.Will be assessed by the number of churches listed on December 3, 2011 (currently at 5,732).

3) Cleaver and inspiring counter campaigns will run simultaneously to Westboro Baptist Church’s picket schedule and/or they will be forced to change their domain name.

4) A new music video by MC Hammer featuring the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir – and yours truly.  FYI, the OIGC was the choir featured in the Can’t Touch This video.

5) More AmeriCorps partnerships with faith-based community organizations.

6) A shift in thinking about Atheism that changes the focus from what it is not, and starts appreciating what it is.

7) The notion of relational identity — as opposed to the ever prevalent hierarchical identity that seeks to label people as patriotic or faithful, but never both.

8) Beautiful creations like that of emle magazine springing forth in response to Islamophobia.

9) Public policy and research organizations reaching out to leaders of t

he faith community to help them bring about social change like Working Partnerships USA’s Interfaith Council.

10) The 7th Conference on Interfaith Youth Work, led by the Interfaith Youth Core, will continue the tradition of being inspiring and change-igniting AWESOME.

11) A religious pluralism bumper sticker that is not based on the passive word, “existence,” but on the active word, “pluralism. Don’t get me wrong, I get the sentiments, but the communications major in me doesn’t like the simplicity of this word.