Note: The reader should not construe anything I write on organized religion to mean that I do not fully support the right of every person to choose to have faith or not. Many find comfort, instruction, and direction in their spiritual life. Good for them. We should all have a harbor as shelter from the storm.
But I cannot abide people who use their religion as a club to beat down those who make them feel uncomfortable. Or who proselytize to minors. Bearing that in mind, let us look at one of these groups.
LifeWise Academy is an organization determined to thwart the Founders' wish that the state stay agnostic on religion. Their mission is to skirt the prohibition on religion in public schools by using the letter of the law to ignore the intent of the law.
Religions and tobacco companies market to kids. Because when you sell a potentially harmful product, it is good to addict the young. Children do not have the experience to be critical thinkers. And both religion and cigarette makers understand that brand loyalty binds consumers to their merchandise.
If you raise a child as a Christian, they are unlikely to convert to another religion. Your more significant risk is that they will kick the habit. This potential apostasy is why a steady flow of new young customers protects profits (Prophets? Dad joke. So sue me.)
LifeWise Academy’s strategy to cloud children’s minds relies on two decades-old Supreme Court decisions. These decisions allow religious marketers to take children off school property during breaks. And bring them to an off-site religious facility where the propagandists can get to work on their young victims.
Here is how NBC News reports this travesty:
WHITEHALL, Ohio — After a morning lesson on multiplying fractions, about half of the students in a fifth-grade class at Etna Road Elementary School packed up their work and headed to the campus library.
The other half, all wearing matching red T-shirts, put on their coats, lined up single-file and boarded a red bus with the words “LifeWise Academy” painted on the side.
While their classmates back at school browsed shelves of books, the children on the bus sang praise to Jesus.
“For there is no other name ... by which we must be saved.”
Defenders of this indoctrination argue that it is voluntary and that the child’s parents must sign off on the extra-curricular activity. But that expedient argument ignores how schools work. Kids do what their friends do. Students bow to peer pressure. And what are children of different or no religion supposed to think?
Sadly, LifeWise has been far more successful than even they thought. As the report continues
When LifeWise launched in 2018, the initial goal was to serve 25 schools by 2025, but it surpassed that long ago. By the start of this year, LifeWise had set up chapters in more than 300 schools in a dozen states, teaching 35,000 public school students weekly Bible lessons that are usually scheduled to coincide with lunch or noncore courses such as library, art or gym class.
Their success makes me sad. These domestic missionaries deny children unstructured reading time, art, and fitness so they can recite dogma. How infuriating. The school week is typically 30 to 35 hours. If you subtract 8 hours a day for sleep, this leaves at least 77 hours — including all of the weekend — for non-academic ‘instruction’. Why not use that time?
There is also no shortage of churches in America — 380,000 by one count — which are open on Sundays, at a minimum. And what happened to Sunday School?
There is no compelling reason to have kids go to church during the school day unless you are trying to restrict their opportunity to hear inconvenient (for you) ideas. In addition, while this off-campus indoctrination is not school-sponsored, school kids will assume it is. The bus comes to their school. It takes them somewhere with no scholastic authority objecting. And it returns them to the school. What are they supposed to conclude?
Let Demrie Alonzo, an English tutor who works at several schools with LifeWise programs in central Ohio, state the obvious.
“Whether it’s happening on campus or not, this program is bringing religion into the school. It’s not fair to the kids of different religions.”
I will add that it is not fair to the Christian kids either. Religious nutters deny them non-core school experiences so they can expose them to material that they could get outside school hours.
In addition, reality further blurs the line between church and state.
Opponents have also documented several instances of teachers and administrators promoting LifeWise to students, either by allowing LifeWise volunteers to visit classrooms, hosting schoolwide assemblies or advertising the program in paperwork sent home to parents — actions that, according to some legal experts, could violate the First Amendment.
LifeWise was founded by former Ohio State Buckeyes defensive lineman Joel Penton. This good Christian was worried he was losing children’s minds to the truth. He was incensed that children discovered some people were LGBTQ — and that being LGBTQ was OK. He is also irate that history classes were revealing the structural racism of the political and legal systems.
Penton lamented the referendum last year enshrining abortion rights in Ohio’s constitution. He said it made him “incredibly sad.” It also made him realize that LifeWise’s mission “is all the more important.” So he decided to use religion as a political tool to get what he wants — what the people want be damned.
Penton described his mission.
“What other hope do we have, but to inject the word of God into the hearts of the next generation?”
What a disturbibg image. I do not want anyone injecting my kids hearts with anything.
The good news is, while Penton and the thousands of other religious zealots who want things their way are making some inroads, the overall picture of religious trends in America paints a more optimistic future. Americans are leaving the church.
Almost 30% of Americans now declare “none” as their preferred religion. More parents raise children in religiously unaffiliated homes. And even kids raised in Christian homes are more likely to become non-religious.
I am one. And my experience gives me hope.
I grew up in a family that went to church every Sunday. I attended two all-boy, Anglican boarding schools in England for 10 years, starting when I was eight. My elementary school had a chapel on campus. My high school had both a church and a chapel.
In fairness, my religious instruction was not the hell-and-brimstone variety. The authorities did not tell us to hate gays, foreigners, or women. The message was patronizing sorrow for these poor people whom nature had dealt a bad hand. In addition, Divinity (Bible study) was a mandatory class.
I had my doubts. But I went with the flow until I was 15. Then, my House Master told me it was time to take confirmation classes. I asked if they were compulsory. Much to my amazement, he said they were not. So, I did not take them. I was never confirmed. And I became a newly-minted atheist.
I only mention this because the religious think that if they capture the kid young enough, they will have their victim locked into their philosophy. But statistics show that frequently does not happen. I left a pretty decent church. Evangelicals promote a sadistic non-Christ version of Christianity that empathetic kids will reject.
But that intellectual growth comes at a cost. Religion knows the buttons to push. I may have left the church at 15, but it took me years to shake the superstition. It was the same when I quit smoking. I knew I had done the right thing. However, addictions do not loosen their grip easily.