My Predictions for 2026
Looking forward by looking all the way back
It’s New Year’s Eve, which means it is time for me to share my predictions for the new year. Let me first share my predictions then I will disclose my methodology. Drumroll, please.
Institutions will find creative ways to either circle the wagons around or oust toxic leaders in order to preserve their influence and financial stability.
Pop psychology trends will give us new ways to think about our lives that initially make sense then prove to have negative unintended consequences.
New technologies will fulfill their promises to make our lives easier and draw us closer together while somehow also creating new ways to divide and isolate us.
The ineffectual results of the projection and use of military might will cause some to protest for peace and others to support an even greater display of dominance.
Hollywood will tell a few new stories that speak with brutal honesty about our individual and societal ills but the movies and TV that captivate our imagination and make the most money will be escapist fantasy.
Political movements will continue to distort reality to justify their problematic leaders until they realize they can do more with a different leader at which time they will drop the dead weight and hail their new hero (who, of course, will also be a reinvention of his or her own true self to match the moment).
Social movements aimed at improving the lives of one group of people will make great sense to some Americans while drawing the outrage of others.
What was my methodology to arrive at such uncanny prescience? I watched a documentary on the year 1975 and described what was going on 50 years ago.
Of course, I could have just as easily “predicted” the events of 2026 by referencing an ancient Hebrew poem:
The sun rises, and the sun goes down,
and hastens to the place where it rises.
The wind blows to the south
and goes around to the north;
around and around goes the wind,
and on its circuits the wind returns.
What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done,
and there is nothing new under the sun.
-Ecclesiastes 1:5-6, 9
None of this is to minimize the watchfulness we should have over current trends such as the rise of AI, the mainstreaming of Christian Nationalists, the tripling of the budget for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and, of course, the popularity of KPop demon hunters. It is an admirable goal to be like the leaders of Issachar “who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do” (1 Chronicles 12:32).
What I predict will be most salient for 2026 is the record of what was happening all the way back at the beginning. Michael Straus translates it this way:
“The Word existed before all Time, timelessly present with God and himself true God…No one has ever seen God. But the Only Begotten Son, who dwells in the heart of the Father, he has made him known.” (John 1:1, 18, The New Testament: A 21st Century Translation)
What was in the beginning—even “before” the beginning if our language bears such description—is an eternal relationship of love. The Word was toward God. There was vibrancy and rest, dynamism and constancy, a communion that was not a cul-de-sac but the fountainhead of all creation. This is our origin story of why we, as those created in the image of God, desire connection and belonging. It is equally the endgame of our ultimate longings.
What will happen in 2026? I have no idea, and neither do those who say they do. But as we await the consummation of all things, we will become most like our true selves when we are caught up in the eternal, dynamic love of God for God and are carried along by its outward flow to a world waiting to be made new.