A Christian ministry out of Ohio is seeing massive growth in a new Bible-based education program for public school students, spreading to over 300 schools across 11 states since its launch in 2019.<\/p>\n
The program, established by\u00a0LifeWise Academy<\/a>, enables public school students to take advantage of\u00a0released time religious education<\/a>\u00a0that is permitted during school hours, in which students can leave school campus to participate in the instruction with the permission of their parents and the school.<\/p>\n Released time religious instruction during public school hours began in 1914 and steadily grew nationwide,\u00a0peaking<\/a>\u00a0in 1947 with two million students enrolled across 2,200 communities. Since then, the number of students involved in the programs have dwindled as American culture and the public education system became increasingly secularized, punctuated by the Supreme Court\u2019s landmark Engel v. Vitale decision in 1962 banning the recitation of prayer in public schools.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, the right to conduct released time religious education during public school hours was upheld by the Supreme Court\u2019s Zorach v. Clauson decision in 1952. According to\u00a0Wikipedia<\/a>, about 250,000 public school students are currently involved in approximately 1,000 released time programs.<\/p>\n As a burgeoning\u00a0parental rights movement<\/a>\u00a0in American public schools increasingly gains momentum, the tide could be turning towards more students taking advantage of released time education for religious instruction. As LifeWise founder and CEO Joel Penton recently\u00a0told The Christian Post<\/a>, the number of schools that now allow released time for the ministry\u2019s Bible program has more than doubled over the last year from 133 to 315. The 11 states where the program can now be found are Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.<\/p>\n As Penton explained, any school community can adopt the academy\u2019s Bible program through a 10-step process that can be found at the organization\u2019s website. He went on to note that despite the intense controversy that often arises around the issue of religion in schools, he has met less resistance than anticipated. \u201cMost schools and parents are very open to the idea. Schools know there is a great need in the lives of students. And seeing as it\u2019s an entirely optional program, there simply aren\u2019t many people who see it as a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n LifeWise\u2019s website describes its curriculum as \u201ctak[ing] students through the entire Bible over five years\u201d with a focus on learning scripture, taking it to heart, and exploring ways that students can live the lessons out in their lives and communities.<\/p>\n Penton argues that released time programs are the \u201csingle greatest missed opportunity to impact the next generation of public school students with biblical literacy.\u201d He pointed to how many Bible study programs for students are scheduled for before and after school, which leaves out a key demographic of students who have conflicting schedules and other logistical challenges. \u201cOperating during school hours, with the permission of both parents and school administrators, has allowed us to better integrate into the school\u2019s culture and reach those previously left out,\u201d he observed.<\/p>\n Read more at: washingtonstand.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A Christian ministry out of Ohio is seeing massive growth in a new Bible-based education program for public school students, spreading to over 300 schools across 11 states since its launch in 2019. The program, established by\u00a0LifeWise Academy, enables public school students to take advantage of\u00a0released time religious education\u00a0that is permitted during school hours, in … Continue reading Public School Bible Program Spreads to 11 States<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":21347,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-watching"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/watching-300x100-300x100-1.jpg","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8fAkI-6mS","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24482"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24484,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24482\/revisions\/24484"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}