Cross & Gavel Podcast

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 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'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, consolidated and addressing an issue that tests the limits of the unanimous decision in the 2012 Hosanna-Tabor case;  Little Sisters of the Poor v. Azar, featuring the order's third trip to the Supreme Court.  It's always a great time when Kim Colby visits Cross & Gavel. She is the director of Christian Legal Society’s Center for Law and Religious Freedom , where she has worked since graduating from Harvard Law School in 1981. She has represented religious groups in several appellate cases, including two cases heard by the United States Supreme Court. She has filed numerous amicus briefs in federal and state courts. Ms. Colby has prepared several CLS publications addressing issues about religious expression in public schools, including released time programs, implementation of the Equal Access Act, and teachers’ religious expression. Visit the Center's website for resources on its first amendment work.  Cross & Gavel is a production of Trinity Law School and Christian Legal Society. Mike Schutt is director of Law Student Ministries for CLS and Clinical Associate Professor at Trinity. 

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 of Biblical studies. For over twenty years, he has presented a seminar entitled Show and Tell: How to View a Movie Responsibly, helping laypeople and students in churches, Christian college and secular university environments understand this powerful medium and how to think about its influence both on the individual and the society. He has taught seminars on popular culture, university education in America today, a Biblical model of discipleship and how to interpret the Scriptures. Drew has three sons, two daughters-in-law and six grandchildren and lives with his wife of forty-five years, Marie, in Charlottesville, VA.  Mike Schutt is host of the Cross & Gavel Podcast. He is Clinical Associate Professor at Trinity Law School, Director of the Institute for Christian Legal Studies, and director of Law Student Ministries at Christian Legal Society. He is the editor in chief of the Journal of Christian Legal Thought and director of the CLS Law School Fellows program. 

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 Redeeming Law.  Mark was also a guest on Episode 46 of Cross & Gavel, one of the most popular episodes in the podcast's history. More recently, he joined Mike to discuss the "New Moralism" in Episode 70 and law and government on Episode 73.  Cross and Gavel is a project of Trinity Law School and Christian Legal Society.