What people are saying:

• Secular Education Association: 📞 Kentucky residents: If you’d like to share your views on HB 829 with legislators, you can contact the Legislative Research Commission message line at 1-800-372-7181.

  You can ask the operator to send your message to your House and Senate members regarding HB 829.

  Legislators often track constituent calls when considering legislation.

• Secular Education Association:
  • Secular Education Association:
  • Secular Education Association:
• Facebook User: There is a reason for separation of church and state. To protect children from indoctrination.
• Facebook User: I agree with your views.
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User thank you for voicing your opinion.
• Facebook User: There are more important issues in schools-drugs, mental health issues, behavioral concerns, hunger, violence, children with special needs, underpaid teachers, unsupportive administrators, etc. Let’s spend our time and resources on these first!
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User
    We agree those are serious issues. Which is EXACTLY why many people question introducing outside religious programming into the school day. Schools are already struggling to address mental health, behavioral needs, and teacher shortages.
• Facebook User: I’ve been a Christian for many years and have raised 3 children with my husband. They attended church and church activities outside of school.
  Since moving to OH (our children are now grown), Lifewise started out in our district and a few others. Now it’s the law that that it must be allowed in all schools.
  I believe in separation of church and state. Not all children are Christian, we have Muslim, Jewish and Buddhist neighbors. Children are being bullied for not attending in and out of school. This is not ok.
  I would highly think about this program, it’s not innocuous.
• Facebook User: A group of community members are trying to start this up in my school district. 😡
• Facebook User: No kidding!
• Facebook User: Is the requirement still a whopping 50 signatures? 🤣
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User funny enough it’s sometimes 100 signatures needed to “start a lifewise”! That’s because they mean nothing, fully arbitrary and meant to show “community interest” despite the fact that we have on multiple occasions proven that those signatures can come from anywhere and often do. There’s no mechanism to keep you from “signing” for a district in another state across the country. Facts! 🙃
• Facebook User: Let’s see if we can all define a morality we agree on
• Facebook User: I am a pastor in Ohio I disapprove. It is indoctrination into fundamentalism. It is a very poor theology and should not be allowed during the school day. Why do these people get to pick the religion. What if others want their religion to be taught and it’s Islam. It discriminates against other faiths. It is a form of indoctrination with vulnerable children. It is growing. People need to ask the school boards to remove it.
  • Facebook User: Facebook User Have you actually read any of their curriculum?
  • Facebook User: No Lora I have not actually read through it but I have read excerpts of it. From what I have read I am not comfortable with the theology.
• Facebook User: I mystified that people fail to recognize that you can teach a) morals without religion and b) patriotism without requiring underaged kids to recite a pledge of allegiance when they can’t even make their own decisions about their lives, in general.
• Facebook User: I am a Christian but disapprove of LifeWise Academy. I am also a retired public school teacher and understand the frustration of teachers trying to do their job. The extra time taken away from the school day is a disruption for all. Of course the students who attend this program love getting out of school and getting prizes, candy, etc. for going. The remaining students notice. It should be the parents’ responsibility to take their child to church.
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User thank you for sharing your valuable perspective as an educator, and thank you for your years of service. We completely agree!
• Facebook User: LifeWise here in Adams Co , Indiana left a small child behind after their off campus meeting …the child was escorted back to the school by a local passerby that stopped his car upon seeing a small child walking alone and fearing for her safety walked with her the several blocks to the school . LifeWise had not even noticed she was missing when boarding their bus for the return to school . They then attempted to blame the child and made no report of the incident and attempted to cover it up from the public and newspaper…they should be disbanded ! Religion belongs in the church and NOT taking precious school time
• Facebook User: I agree
• Facebook User: I’d like to review the curriculum, syllabus, requirements for teachers, materials, and so forth
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User prior to one of our founders being sued- no one could access the curriculum. Not even schools or clergy. Because of our fight, you can now go and request very limited access to it through the lifewise website.
• Facebook User: I really advise those educators in the US to watch the BAFTA winning documentary Mr Nobody Against Putin. On Amazon Prime. Get teachers together and share thoughts! It documents the creep of the war and authoritarian regime into the indoctrination of Russian students. Exactly whats happening in the US! It is shocking and it all started with the ‘posting of being a patriotic student’ on classroom walls! Sounds familiar. The esculation of interference and indoctrination on students, the removal of ‘woke’ safe spaces, mental wellbeing, diversity, in its place came macho patriatism, teachers being forced to teach a new revised curriculum revisionist history to justify wars. Indoctrination of a new generation to begin in a new narrative that knows no different. We learn lessons from history, but if you erradicate it or present a new context, we dont question the actions of the new order.
  Reccommend! Watch! And take note!
• Facebook User: What is driving this craziness? It has to stop.
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User a few things. But most of this is straight from project 2025 playbook. They WANT to destroy public education. The first round was siphon money from public schools and demonize the teachers and accuse of“woke” indoctrination.

    The second round will be to cause internal division. Between the kids, the parents, the teachers and entire communities. THIS is aiding in that.

  • Facebook User: I recognize the plan. What I am wondering is why people CHOOSE to believe nonsense and CHOOSE to “fix” problems that don’t exist. I believe the craziness is rooted in religion but most people are reluctant to even talk about that.
  • Facebook User: Do you have written documentation from Project 2025 that states this? That would be good information to read out loud in school board meetings.
  • Facebook User: Secular Education Association they are not trying to ruin public education. I do t know where you get that info. They are not demonizing teachers or schools. I know several people involved in LifeWise and you are definitely misrepresenting what they are doing.
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User we are sure the people you know involved in LifeWise are sincere and well-intentioned. This conversation isn’t about individual volunteers, or programs- the original question was “what’s driving this?”. It’s about the broader policy movement pushing these programs into public schools. Groups behind initiatives like Project 2025 openly advocate redirecting public education funding to private and religious education and restructuring the public school system. Programs like released-time instruction are part of that larger ecosystem, whether local participants see it that way or not.
• Facebook User: 100%
• Facebook User: Nope. Separation of church and state keeps each empowered.
• Facebook User: Check out the Life wise in Decatur Indiana. They LEFT A CHILD BEHIND and tried to cover it up. Yet our kids in IN can’t read at a 3rd grade level. Indoctrination as it’s defined in action.
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User unfortunately we’re very familiar with the Decatur situation. The of the mother of the child left behind is a member of our private group. We agree!
• Facebook User: 🌀🌀🌀Here are clear historical examples of Pascal’s Wager gone wrong—cases where people or institutions bet on belief for safety, power, or reward, and the wager produced harm, distortion, or collapse.
  1. The Medieval Church & Salvation-by-Compliance
  Church authorities effectively institutionalized Pascal’s Wager: believe, obey, pay, or risk eternal damnation. This logic justified indulgences, fear-based control, and suppression of dissent. The wager incentivized outward conformity over truth, helping trigger the Protestant Reformation—a massive fracture caused by people rejecting coerced belief.
  2. Witch Trials (Belief as Risk Management)
  Communities reasoned: better to kill a possible witch than risk God’s wrath. This warped wager logic fueled executions during the Salem witch trials and earlier European hunts. The “safe bet” produced paranoia, false accusations, and mass injustice—demonstrating how fear + infinite stakes override evidence and compassion.
  3. Colonial Conversions & Forced Christianity
  Colonizers wagered that imposing Christianity was safer than allowing “pagan souls” to be lost. This rationale justified cultural erasure, violence, and slavery across the Americas and Africa. The wager privileged the colonizer’s God while destroying societies—showing the many-gods problem in brutal form.
  4. Modern Fundamentalism & Anti-Science Decisions
  Pascal-style reasoning appears in rejecting evolution, climate science, or medicine: if scripture is right, doubting is dangerous. This has led to preventable deaths (e.g., faith healing refusals) and policy paralysis. The wager protects belief at the expense of reality.
  Bottom line:
  When Pascal’s Wager moves from a personal hedge to a social rule, it rewards fear, punishes doubt, and empowers authority. History shows that betting on belief to avoid infinite loss often produces very real, finite disasters—for others, not just the believer.
• Facebook User: No religion should be involved in public schools
  • Secular Education Association: Facebook User we could not agree more!
• Facebook User: Almost like the people opposed to this in the first place said that from the beginning.
• Facebook User: I’m a Christian, and while I believe we are called to make Disciples for Jesus, I don’t think this is an ethical way to do it. Christian parents should send their own children to their own church activities outside of the public school system.