Speech and Sermon Topics

Curt Smith has advocated for the sanctity of human life for over 35 years until his son, Andrew, fell to cancer at the tender age of 25 in January of 2016. A Butler University academic and basketball standout, Andrew and his wife were living the dream in his formative years as a professional basketball player in Lithuania when doctors discovered a cancerous lump, setting into motion a two-year agonizing decline.

Curt and Deb Smith entered this painful season with a theological conviction that there is meaning in suffering, and today they are emerging, even in bereavement, all the more convinced that the lesson from cancer is the same as any suffering -- simply, child-like, faith in God's purpose. God was, is, and forever will be good, and he faithfully redeems tears. 

"Our Father in Heaven lost his only begotten son to this fallen world we call life," Curt says. "He knows. He understands. He grieves with the bereaved parent whose child is no more."

Curt Smith delivers "Cancer Lessons" from a conservative Christian perspective coupled with deeply-felt respect and affirmation for those suffering through end-of-life situations and their care-givers, regardless of their faith convictions or lack thereof. Cancer Lessons is delivered with humor, cheer and sober candor, and peppered with anecdotes from Curt's fascinating career helping household political and celebrity leaders. Curt can also include perspectives from his years as a public policy expert on matters related to abortion, assisted suicide, euthanasia, and more.

This speech is similar to Curt's "Be The Match" speech, but focuses less on the spiritual aspect of Andrew's story and more on the promotion of Be The Match program.

30-45 minutes, with extra modules available related to care-giving for the terminally ill, public policy considerations, and question and answers. Powerpoint. Optional: break-out sessions for collaboration.

As America prepares for the 2020 elections, politicians and pundits alike want to know if President Trump’s most loyal constituency will stay with him. Evangelical Protestants and traditional Catholics, so called SAGE or spiritually-active, government engaged citizens, provided Trump his largest and most loyal voting block. Will they stay with him in 2020 through impeachment talk, campaign debates, a sometimes coarse Presidency and more?  Should they stay with him? Has he earned their votes and loyalty, or has he crossed the line that means people of faith must look elsewhere. Curt Smith analyzes this group, what motivates its voting and how that aligns with Biblical truth, making bold predictions about the 2020 vote.

The United States has been the envy of the world for over two hundred years now in terms of religious freedom but the tables seem to be turning, and Curt Smith's tenure as president of the Indiana Family Institute serves as a chilling case-in-point. 

In 2015, Indiana passed its own Religious Freedom Amendment Act (RFRA), following the lead of the U.S. Congress in 1996 and 20 other states who had passed their own form of a state-based protection. The left howled in protest, however, claiming that such a law was designed to discriminate against homosexuals. Indiana Governor Mike Pence and his conservative Republic leaders in the house and senate subsequently passed "RFRA Fix" only days later.

In the wake of the RFRA fracas, Curt's primary employer, the public policy arm of Taft Stettinius and Hollister, fired Curt for his work as a lobbyist for traditional marriage and religious freedom in Indiana. Curt published in September his book, "Deicide" to convey that the American church has lost a theological understanding of government, estranging us from both our founding as well as our founders. The Bible not only teaches government is good, but it teaches how citizens of heaven help their fellow citizens on earth to help government become good. This is the theology of statecraft, and it is sorely missing from the American church's thinking.

In this speech, Curt covers the big ideas of theological statecraft covered in his book, Deicide. He doesn't curse the darkness, but uses wit and humor to cast a vision for what it might look like for the church to recapture its historic primacy in the public square, pragmatically fulfilling the church's role in theological statecraft.

In January of 2016, Butler University academic and basketball standout Andrew Smith passed away after a two year battle with leukemia. Today, Curt Smith travels to schools, churches and other organizations to share his family's experience and to explain how young people can give hope to blood cancer victims by simply registering with the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP).

​For the thousands of people diagnosed every year with life-threatening blood cancers like leukemia and lymphoma, a cure exists. Over the past 25 years Be The Match, operated by the NMDP, has managed the largest and most diverse marrow registry in the world. ​

Curt Smith delivers "Be The Match" from a conservative Christian perspective coupled with deeply-felt respect and affirmation for those suffering through end-of-life situations and their care-givers, regardless of their faith convictions or lack thereof. This speech is similar to Curt's "Cancer Lessons" speech, but focuses less on the spiritual aspect of Andrew's story and more on the promotion of Be The Match program. The speech is delivered with humor, cheer and sober candor. 

Education is important, not because Aristotle, Lincoln and Napolean said so, but when geniuses, heroes and monsters agree on anything, we ought to take special notice. The classroom in Curt Smith's generation--the baby boomers of the 1960s, concluded that we didn’t need God, the Bible or prayer -- and man could take care of his problems all on his own, thank you very much. So, President Lyndon Baines Johnson declared war on poverty; $16 trillion dollars and now nearly 50 years later, we know who won the war –- poverty. 

America's poverty rate is higher than when the Great Society programs were launched in the mid-60s. The Christian school movement owes its beginning to such well-intentioned but misguided steps, so readily apparent in the politically correct and religiously sterile environment we know as public education. And escaping that philosophy has been at the heart of the success of the Christian Education movement.

Curt has delivered this banquet keynote speech to private and Christian schools and a variety of fund-raising opportunities. Curt and Debbie Smith are satisfied customers of Christian education, having raised their four children in Christian schools through graduation and into adulthood.