Signs and Wonders 06.18

Climate change and sea levels. An interesting bill is winding its way through the North Carolina General Assembly that would require state policies dependent on sea level forecasts to be based on historical trends, rather than speculative computer projections. According to Paul Chesser of the National Legal and Policy Center, "The implications for such policies are not small, as extreme predictions-such as the 39-inch-rise-by-year-2100 prophecy spat out by computer models-would require billions of dollars (much of it from taxpayers) to build new infrastructure, adjust to new building codes and higher insurance rates, and restrict land use and property rights." Chesser blasted mainstream media coverage of the debate. He said that "property rights defenders such as the NC-20 coalition, which represents coastal counties, were marginalized as 'deniers' of real science." Chesser, on the other hand, believes that policy decisions should be made by "science based on observation" and not "hype and exaggeration."

Obama still ahead, but not by much. The election is still months away, and much can still happen, but lots of recent polling data indicate a surge for Mitt Romney in the presidential campaign. Last week, an ABC/Washington Post poll found that when it comes to the economy, President Obama narrowly edges Romney 43 percent to 40 percent among registered voters. But the Post notes that Obama enjoyed a 20-point lead over John McCain on the economy in pre-election polling in 2008. A Quinnipiac poll of Pennsylvania has Obama ahead by six points, but in 2008 he carried the state by 10 points, and this poll found that Pennsylvanians believe Romney would do a better job handling the economy (49 to 41 percent).

"I'm not a thief." These were the words of Allen Stanford just before he was sentenced to 110 years in prison for defrauding investors out of $7 billion in what a jury said was a Ponzi scheme. I became interested in Stanford (and wrote about him for WORLD) because many of his victims and employees were evangelical Christians. The Bernard Madoff fraud was larger in terms of actual dollars: Madoff orchestrated a $17 billion Ponzi scheme. But Stanford likely had many more victims. The Stanford Victims Coalition claims that more than 20,000 people lost money in the Stanford scheme. Angela Shaw Kogutt, the group's director, said, "This was not a bloodless financial crime carried out on paper. It has taken a staggering toll on victims around the globe."

Roaring lamb. Bob Briner, who died on this date in 1999, is almost forgotten today, but his book Roaring Lambs: A Gentle Plan to Radically Change Your World was an encouragement to many Christian writers and artists when it came out in the 1990s. Briner's career was mostly spent outside the Christian media industry. He was a leading figure in professional sports management. He introduced National Basketball Association games to Chinese television and won an Emmy for producing a television show about tennis great Arthur Ashe. But it was Roaring Lambs that caught the attention of the Christian community, with its call to believers to be "salt and light" in whatever arena of life God has gifted them. Briner was also a great encourager of those who, however haltingly, were trying to put into practice the principles of his book. When he discovered some things I had written, I started getting emails from him. We exchanged messages for about a year until one day I got one from him that said his health had deteriorated to the point that this would likely be the last time I would hear from him. I have now, alas, lost those emails, but I do remember the encouragement I felt by having someone of his stature reading and commenting on my work. In the years since his death, I have run into literally scores of people with similar stories. He died of abdominal cancer, but not before completing one last book: The Final Roar. In 2000, Steve Curtis Chapman, Charlie Peacock, Steve Taylor, Ashley Cleveland, Michael Tait, and others collaborated on an album dedicated to Briner. The album won a Dove Award and was nominated for two others.