Cross & Gavel Audio

In 1943, a German U-Boat attacked an American ship off the coast of Greenland. In the moments thereafter, courage and panic proved to be the currency of choice; some, succumbing to the moment in sheer terror. While others, embodying the sacrificial tenor of true heroes, gave their lives to save their friends. Here to discuss the sinking of the USS Dorchester and the awe-inspiring rescue that followed is law professor and founding director of the religious freedom clinic at the University of Texas, Steven T. Collis. Buy his book, The Immortals, today; and, follow his work at the law school.     JOIN US this October in San Antonio for the CLS National Conference. This year's event will feature Lee Strobel, Ruth Okediji, James K.A. Smith, and Laudir Lugo. Register today.   Episode produced by Josh Deng, with music from Vexento. A Special Thanks to Nick and Ashley Barnett for their contribution in making this podcast possible.

The rampant flood of misinformation has made it increasingly difficult to be a member of the reality based community. Here to diagnose this problem and to offer a solution is senior fellow at the Brookings Institute and contributing writer for The Atlantic, Jonathan Rauch. Discover his writing and follow him on Twitter at @jon_rauch. Purchase his important new book – The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth – today!     JOIN US this October in San Antonio for the CLS National Conference. This year's event will feature Lee Strobel, Ruth Okediji, James K.A. Smith, and Laudir Lugo. Register today.   Episode produced by Josh Deng, with music from Vexento. A Special Thanks to Nick and Ashley Barnett for their contribution in making this podcast possible.

It's no secret that religion of late has lost its luster in the eyes of many Americans. Cast into relative disrepute for seemingly disrupting the momentum in the fight for equality, religion is no longer seen as the preeminent value once deemed by both political parties. Joining the show today to discuss these issues is the national religion reporter at Deseret News: Kelsey Dallas. Read her articles and subscribe to her newsletter today to keep up with the latest developments.     JOIN US this October in San Antonio for the CLS National Conference. This year's event will feature Lee Strobel, Ruth Okediji, James K.A. Smith, and Laudir Lugo. Register today.   Episode produced by Josh Deng, with music from Vexento.

Another term, another Supreme Court review! Kim Colby and I talk about the cases that impacted the state of religious liberty in America and what the future may bring. Learn more about her work at CLS' Center for Law & Religious Freedom here.   Episode produced by Josh Deng, with music from Vexento.

Joining us today to talk about conservative Christianity and racial identity in the segregation era is historian Daniel Bare. We talk about the fundamentalist tradition in the early twentieth century and why the influence of the black church was lost during this period. For a sample, read his article in Christianity Today entitled The Uneasy Conscience of Black Fundamentalism and check out the review of his book from historian Thomas Kidd.    Learn more about Daniel in his bio for Texas A&M and on Twitter via @Daniel_Bare. But, most importantly, buy his book today through NYU Press.   Finally, JOIN US this October in San Antonio for the CLS National Conference. This year's event will feature Lee Strobel, Ruth Okediji, James K.A. Smith, and Laudir Lugo. Register today.   Episode produced by Josh Deng, with music from Vexento.

From the Book of Numbers to the storming of the Capitol, Andrew L. Whitehead joins us today to discuss Christian Nationalism and its impact on American religion. His new book, with co-author Samuel Perry, offers a seminal sociological study for understanding this new movement, including the various ways Christian Nationalists think, vote, and manifest their desires for a renewed Christian America.   To learn more about the work that Andrew is doing, check out his bio, his new book, and follow him on Twitter at @ndrewwhitehead.   Finally . . . join us this October in San Antonio for the CLS National Conference. This year's event will feature Lee Strobel, Ruth Okediji, James K.A. Smith, and Laudir Lugo. Register today.   [This episode has been produced by Josh Deng. Music comes from Vexento.]

Volume 4 of "Small Brains on Big Books" features Drew Nelson and Mike Schutt discussing Beowulf. You'll love this discussion, even if you didn't love Beowulf in High School.  Andrew Nelson is preacher at Southside Church of Christ in Mount Pleasant Texas, and Mike Schutt is the host of Cross and Gavel audio, Executive Director of Worldview Academy, and Clinical Associate Professor at Trinity Law School.

Join host Mike Schutt, Law Student Ministries Communications Coordinator Joan McElveen, Pepperdine 3L Reed Bartley, and law student leaders from other law schools across the country, as they share and discuss virtual meetings that work. 

Listen in on excerpts from our first-ever national Law Student Leaders' Summit, featuring an introduction to Law Student Ministries, an overview of Christian Legal Society's four ministries, an exhortation on the calling of the leader, and some questions and sharing by campus leaders from all over the country. 

On Wednesday, September 9, the Department of Education announced a new rule that will protect religious groups meeting on public university campuses. Kim Colby, the director of the Center for Law and Religious Freedom at Christian Legal Society, lays out why the regulation was necessary, and what it will mean for students.  The Department's announcement is here. 

Join Drew Nelson and Mike Schutt as they discuss the insights and admonitions of Rod Dreher‘s 2017 The Benedict Option. The book has been widely discussed, and rightly so, in Christian circles since its publication, and, as Drew and Mike discuss, Dreher’s challenge to the Church to be the Church is a welcome one, regardless of the relative dangers of secular culture. Yet the book’s insights on that score are helpful, too, and Drew and Mike highlight Dreher's key insights on politics, education, and technology as they relate to his main thesis. Andrew Nelson is preacher at Southside Church of Christ in Mount Pleasant Texas, and Mike Schutt is the host of Cross and gavel audio, the director of Christian Legal Society’s Law Student Ministries, and Clinical Associate Professor at Trinity Law School.

Kim Colby and Reed Smith of the Center for Law and Religious Freedom unpack the troubling Supreme Court decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, handed down June 15. Justice Gorsuch seems to abandon his vaunted "textualism" in favor of a convoluted "literalism" with disastrous results. This is part three of three episodes discussing the important Supreme Court decisions of the last three weeks.  Between June 15 and June 30, 2020, the US Supreme Court handed down three significant decisions of critical interest to religious conservatives. Colby and Smith join host Mike Schutt to discuss each case. Their conversation is divided into three episodes, one for each case.  Episode 92 features Kim Colby on Espinoza v. Montana Dept of Revenue, episode 93 focuses on June Medical Services v. Russo with Reed Smith, and episode 94 unpacks Bostock v. Clayton County, GA, a particularly troubling case on the meaning of the word "sex" in Title VII.  Kim Colby is Director of the Christian Legal Society'sCenter for Law

Between June 15 and June 30, 2020, the US Supreme Court handed down three significant decisions of critical interest to religious conservatives. Kim Colby and Reed Smith, attorneys at the Center for Law & Religious Freedom, join host Mike Schutt to discuss each case. Their conversation is divided into three episodes, one for each case.  Episode 92 features Kim Colby on Espinoza v. Montana Dept of Revenue, episode 93 focuses on June Medical Services v. Russo with Reed Smith, and episode 94 unpacks Bostock v. Clayton County, GA.  Kim Colby is Director of the Christian Legal Society'sCenter for Law and Religious Freedom, and Reed Smith is the Center's Director of Litigation. 

Between June 15 and June 30, 2020, the US Supreme Court handed down three significant decisions of critical interest to religious conservatives. Kim Colby and Reed Smith, attorneys at the Center for Law & Religious Freedom, join host Mike Schutt to discuss each case. Their conversation is divided into three episodes, one for each case.  Episode 92 features Kim Colby on Espinoza v. Montana Dept of Revenue, episode 93 focuses on June Medical Services v. Russo with Reed Smith, and episode 94 unpacks Bostock v. Clayton County, GA.  Kim Colby is Director of the Christian Legal Society's Center for Law and Religious Freedom, and Reed Smith is the Center's Director of Litigation. 

Kim Colby, Director of the Center for Law & Religious Freedom, says that the Supreme Court will decide at least eight important religious freedom cases between now and next June. This term and next are "dream terms," she says, for religious freedom lawyers and court watchers. In this episode, she highlights five of these cases, beginning with the "church re-opening" case, South Bay United Pentecostal Church v. Newsom, decided on an emergency appeal earlier this month ("I am concerned and disappointed, but not flipping out," she says of Chief Justice Roberts's concurring opinion). From there, she discusses the import of four major cases that have been argued or will be argued later this year: Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue. She expects an announcement of the decision any day now, and she predicts a win for religious freedom; Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, "an extremely important case" in which the Center filed an amicus brief; St. James School v. Biel/Our Lady of Guadalupe v. Morrissey-Berru,

Dr. Drew Trotter, executive director of the Consortium of Christian Study Centers, is a film critic who understands the role that movies play in shaping us as a society. His lecture, The Movies and America: What the Nominees for Best Picture Tell Us About Ourselves, is an annual favorite around the country.  In this episode, Dr. Trotter sits down with host Mike Schutt to discuss the nominees for best picture. They discuss how we love our neighbors through watching movies, how to better understand what we watch, and the issue of difficult or graphic content in today's movies. They also consider what these nominees might tell us about ourselves.  Drew Trotter is the Executive Director of the Consortium of Christian Study Centers. He was for twenty-two years the Executive Director and President of the Center for Christian Study in Charlottesville, VA. Drew has written on film and popular culture for over thirty years in such publications as Books & Culture, Christianity Today and Critique, and in the field

Pastor Mark Bertrand has turned to the Psalms for his sermon texts during the global pandemic, and he joins Mike Schutt to discuss insights and encouragement from this rich source. You'll be encouraged as Mark explores how the "Songbook of the Church" speaks to us about lessons in crisis, sources of hope in trial, and the joys inherent in the life of faith. J. Mark Bertrand is the pastor of Grace Presbyterian Church in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. He is also a novelist and author, and he teaches on the Worldview Academy faculty. His crime noir works are Back on Murder, Pattern of Wounds,and Nothing to Hide. His book [Re]Thinking Worldview: Learning to Think, Live, and Speak in this World (Crossway 2007) is a great primer on Christian thought and action. He blogs at the world-renowned Bible Design Blog, sharing thoughts and photos on a multitude of design issues. His real claim to fame is that he was interviewed by Ken Myers on Mars Hill Audio Journal, volume 90, which also features Mike Schutt discussing Redeem

Host Mike Schutt again welcomes East Texas preacher Drew Nelson to the podcast to discuss The Odyssey, Homer's ancient epic poem about . . . well, wait. What is it about?  Mike and Drew explore that question and more-- including why good Christians should read good pagan literature and why you might like The Odyssey-- as they highlight its major themes and give some background to the poem. Their hope is that a couple of regular guys reading big books might encourage other regular folks to do the same.    Drew Nelson is preacher at Southside Church of Christ in Mount Pleasant, TX, and Mike Schutt is host of the Cross & Gavel podcast, director of Christian Legal Society's Law Student Ministries, and Clinical Associate Professor at Trinity Law School. Cross & Gavel is a project of Trinity Law and CLS.

Greg Rummel, President and CEO of Rummel Agency in Frankenmuth, Michigan, has a word of encouragement for us in this global pandemic: God's got this, too. Listen in as Greg shares with host Mike Schutt how battling cancer helped hm to think well about living in difficult times-- and to focus on what is really important. You'll be encouraged! Cross & Gavel podcast is a project of Christian Legal Society and Trinity Law School.     

"The efficiency brought by new forms of technology has just made us demand more of one another," says Myron Steeves, dean of Trinity Law School. "Our important innovations sometimes give us the opposite of what we desire." In this episode, Dean Steeves and Mike Schutt explore the topic of technology and the tyranny of time. If advances in technology and greater efficiency in our lives don't make us better people all by themselves, why do we keep chasing them as ends in and of themselves? Is too much of a good thing still good? Join the conversation as they ask these questions and others!  Cross & Gavel is a project of Trinity Law School and Christian Legal Society.