#education #religion #LifeWise
"The lesson was on the crucifixion. The teacher asked the seven- and eight-year-olds to write down a list of their 'most troublesome sins'. She had brought an example of a whip to show them how Jesus was tortured before his death. 'There would have been no skin left on Jesus’s back. His ribs would have been exposed because once it takes your skin off, when they keep going it’s digging into your organs,' she said. After the beating his raw body rubbed against the cross. 'Think of the splinters!' she exclaimed. The children sat mostly quietly as she told them that God could not look at Jesus because he was covered in sins. Soon time was up. Jesus would be resurrected, she reassured them, but that was for next class.
The session was recorded by a concerned teacher’s aide just before Easter in a small Ohio town. The instruction was part of a weekly programme run by LifeWise Academy, a non-profit. LifeWise buses children from public schools to local churches during recess, gym, art, library and other elective classes to teach them the gospel during the school day, if parents opt in. Its instructors are a mix of retired teachers, pastors and local mums.
Parents initiate bringing the programme into their schools and raise funds to pay LifeWise a startup fee. The group then provides red buses and a plug-and-play curriculum. It is no small enterprise. This year LifeWise operated in 585 school districts across 28 states and enrolled more than 44,000 students. By autumn, when school starts again, it will be in 982 districts in 33 states, an increase of nearly 70%. The group’s meteoric rise can also be measured in money. In 2023 LifeWise made a $4m surplus, according to tax filings. Last year the figure was $17m.
Joel Penton, a former football player at Ohio State University, founded LifeWise six years ago. He was shocked to discover in 2018 that pupils in taxpayer-funded schools could legally be released for religious study, as long as classes weren’t taught on school grounds and students weren’t forced to go. Zorach v Clauson, a 1952 Supreme Court decision stemming from a New York City case, had set the boundaries. As a born-again Christian bent on evangelising, Mr Penton reckoned that 'release time' might be 'the single greatest missed opportunity to give access to the Bible to the next generation'. Mormons and Jews had done it, but not at scale. 'That was the day I stopped sleeping,' he says. America’s public schools became his mission field.
The classes, a handbook explains, are 'designed primarily to engage unchurched students' rather than mimic traditional Sunday schools that just serve young Christians. Some parents are thrilled about the maverick model, as the soaring attendance numbers show, but others say LifeWise is pernicious. LifeWise students are taught to proselytise to their peers, which can pressure non-participants. A parent says her fourth-grader who opted out of LifeWise was bullied and called a 'sinner' after she cussed during recess. A Jewish nine-year-old begged his parents to let him believe in Jesus so he could attend.
Get thee behind me
Molly Gaines, a parent who lives in an Ohio town with seven churches and no grocery store, says that in poor rural places a LifeWise pizza party may be the only hot meal children get that week. 'They’re preying on these kids who have hard lives and want to be a part of something,' she says.
Ms Gaines and Zachary Parrish, an Indiana dad, co-founded the Secular Education Association, an advocacy group. They argue that LifeWise is crossing the lines laid out by the Supreme Court in Zorach. They have identified more than two dozen districts where school staff have promoted LifeWise, let the group fundraise on school property, included it on class schedules or rented it space. In some schools teachers are prohibited from teaching new materials while LifeWise students are away."
#lifewise is arguing that their bribes are illegal?
Ohio Legislators Tell Kids Not To Be Gay And To Read Their Bible
We talk about the use of Ohio's Don't Say Gay bill including mandatory released time religious instruction policies for public-schools
#GenderIdentity #LGBTYouth #Lifewise #OhioSubstituteHouseBill82024 #ReleasedTimeReligiousInstruction
GOP Immigration Fear-mongering and Defending Secular Public Education
The republican party, headed by a convicted felon, devoid of any real policies to help people this election season instead dusted off the illegal immigrint trope to scare white
#ChristianNationalism #HonestyForOhioEducation #immigration #Lifewise #ReleaseTimeReligiousInstruction #RepublicanParty
Copyright law is not a tool to punish or silence critics. This is a principle so fundamental that it is the ur-example of fair use, which typically allows copying another’s creative work when necessary for criticism. But sometimes, unscrupulous rightsholders misuse copyright law to bully critics...
EFF Assists Critic’s Fair Use Defense Over Kids’ Religious Program ‘Leak’
Public schools all over the country and especially in Ohio are being invaded by a Christian Nationalist group called LifeWise. They claim to be teaching character values using Bible stories but in reviewing some of these Bible stories, we have to ask, Do we want to be teaching young kids about Human sacrifice for example?
Stephen Hinton
Levka
NN Schneider
Glass City Humanist
Secular Left
Benjamin Carr, Ph.D. 👨🏻💻🧬
TorrentFreak RSS
Toledo Humanists
Steven Saus [he/him]