LifeWise Academy-Columbus Grove posted that they prayed for public school science teachers while pairing it with a Bible verse commonly used as a call to “rise up” in a critical moment.
Let’s be clear about what that suggests:
This is not a neutral “we love all teachers” message.
This is a school-adjacent religious program publicly framing science teachers as the subject of spiritual concern, correction, or opposition.
That should be extremely disturbing.
Public school science teachers are there to teach evidence-based standards, not to be cast as the enemy in someone else’s religious mission.
And this is exactly why so many families are alarmed by programs like LifeWise operating alongside the public school day. It is never just about “character” or “values.” Again and again, the message underneath is that public schools- and the educators inside them- are a problem to be countered.
Students should not be encouraged to see their science teachers as spiritually suspect.
Teachers should not be singled out by outside religious groups in posts like this.
And public schools should not be used as recruiting ground for ministries that treat academic instruction as a religious battleground.
Public schools belong to all students.
Not just the ones one group thinks it is called to “save.”
Religious Freedom requires neutral schools.
*We have blurred the children’s faces for safety, as it was not done so on the original post.
What people are saying:
- Secular Education Association: Tagging for visibility
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ACLU Of Ohio - Facebook User: Why is there Christian nationalism in the school at all?
- Secular Education Association: Facebook User we have the same question!!
- Facebook User: I can’t even find the Columbus grove page anymore. Did they block me?
- Secular Education Association: Facebook User likely they have a fantastic habit of doing this when the community begins to ask questions.
- Facebook User: Secular Education Association Yep, i got blocked by my local Lifewise chapter for suggesting that the money raised for repairing a bus might be better used in other ways that don’t require pulling kids out of class.
- Facebook User: As a retired science teacher, thank you for speaking out about this.
- Facebook User: It’s religion not education! Almost cultish
- Facebook User: Facebook Useralmost?
-ish? You’re too kind. 😂 They’re pretty much a textbook cult.
- Facebook User: Facebook Useralmost?
- Facebook User: Lifewise is brainwashing and indoctrination. The harm done to these children will last a lifetime.
- Secular Education Association: Facebook User our concern too.
- Facebook User: Ha. This is my hometown. It tracks. And it’s annoying
- Facebook User: 😡
- Facebook User: “For such a time as this” / Esther / Yada yada yada.
Enough already Dominionists!
- Facebook User: Facebook User speaking of Esther, Project Esther is another nightmare.
- Facebook User: Facebook User truth
- Facebook User: I’m so tired of the hypocrisy. All the cries about “indoctrination” but that’s literally what this is. Even though I don’t agree with it, I don’t know why these people don’t just take their kids to church and take the time to teach them what they want their kids to believe.
- Facebook User: They do that, too, but the point is that level of containment is unacceptable to them. They do not want their religion’s jurisdiction confined to informed, consenting adherents.
- Facebook User: Facebook User Christian Nationalism: “Everyone must believe as we believe & do what we tell them they can do.” AKA Cult. Gives power & control to a select few.
- Facebook User: Facebook User then they would have to do it
- Facebook User: They get nervous that their children might have to spend a few hours a day around people who are different than them 😒
- Facebook User: Lifewise is NOT LIFE WISE and needs to be removed from public schools.
- Secular Education Association: Facebook User we couldn’t agree more.
- Facebook User: Being anti-science and then using a platform designed by science to get their ani-science message out. Kinda of like when the Luddite Society had a web page. You want religion and bible class, go to church, otherwise, keep it out of public schools…
- Facebook User: Yes, this is extreme and these are extreme times. I wonder who the “we” in “We prayed for many people…”. Can this be clarified? Is this in the context of a LifeWise staff meeting…or what?
- Secular Education Association: Facebook User this is a lifewise class that’s being held.
- Facebook User: This prayer was done with children present?
- Secular Education Association: Facebook User We can only report on the post as it was originally published. The prayer is in the post — but we can’t confirm past that as we weren’t present.
- Facebook User: Go do church outside school hours.
- Facebook User: Freedom from religion is the most important right in America in 2026, imo
- Facebook User: Get LIFEWISE OUT OF SCHOOLS!
- Facebook User: Facebook User Law says otherwise!
- Secular Education Association: Facebook User lots of things were law before we realized how morally and ethically wrong they were.
- Facebook User: Facebook User The law is a bad one. Separation of church and state. No religious teaching in public schools. Get your weird beliefs away from children.
- Facebook User: Facebook User The law allows for release time for religious instruction. It can be any religion. The state is not endorsing a specific denomination. You can’t tell me my kid can’t go to Lifewise or any other religious class just because you don’t like it. At a local district, all kids are able to attend daily Mass with parent permission. School bus stops at the church, drops them off, and comes back 45 minutes later to get them. Teachers all have plan time when the kids are at Mass and the few that don’t attend have study hall or intervention. I am not Catholic, but my kid would go to Mass if I lived there.
- Facebook User: Facebook User Religious teaching can happen after school or on weekends. Removing kids from their school to be religiously brainwashed is a bad idea. Keep kids in their schools! Do your religious antics another time.
- Facebook User: Facebook User Not your kids. Not your concern. I will decide what my kids do or get involved in.
- Facebook User: Facebook User Fine, but keep religion out of my public schools!
- Secular Education Association: Mark Philip no you won’t. Not in our public schools with OUR KIDS.
- Facebook User: Facebook User of course. No one else wants to decide what your kids get involved in. We only want to uphold the seperation of church and state, as per the united states constitution. You decide what your kids are indoctrinated to do, not the state.
James Madison, the “Father of the Constitution,” was a primary architect of the separation of church and state, viewing it as essential to protect individual conscience and liberty. He believed total separation between ecclesiastical and civil matters ensured religious freedom and prevented the “ceaseless strife” that characterized European history.
James Madison’s Montpelier
Key Aspects of Madison’s Views:
Memorial and Remonstrance: In 1785, Madison wrote this influential document arguing against government-supported religion, stating that forcing a citizen to pay taxes for religious support was tyrannical.
Conscience as Property: Madison believed that one’s conscience was the “most sacred of all property” and that government should not interfere with religious belief.
The First Amendment: He was the key author of the Bill of Rights, with the Establishment Clause (the first clause of the First Amendment) reflecting his strict separationist view.
Opposition to Government Proclamations: Although he made some proclamations during the War of 1812, he later indicated these were mistakes and argued that governmental acts of devotion were inconsistent with the Constitution.
Purpose: He aimed to prevent government from establishing any particular sect of Christianity or religion over others.
- Facebook User: This is so weird and creepy.
- Facebook User: An easy evidence: We (and probably they) regularly eat pizza, spaghetti sauce, and ketchup with tomatoes as their ingredient. I wish they would not mess with the science, especially if they do not understand it. (We have some expert deniers amongst us.)
- Facebook User: To be fair, when you look at their prior posts you can see that they identify other departments and name/pray for the teachers in other departments as well.
The optics on this one isn’t good, and I’m not excusing their post overall but I think the praying for the teachers part and the rest of their post are two separate things.
- Secular Education Association: Facebook User we disagree. That is a VERY specific Bible verse to pair with the science teachers no? Also. If it was innocent why change it?
- Facebook User: Secular Education Association could you make a post about this: I read on another organization’s site that LifeWise is telling children that if what their parents says is different than what (their version of) the Bible says that the children should listen to/obey the Bible instead of their parents. Also read on the other side that LifeWise teachers believe that single parents are in sin (because they have divorced ) So if you can confirm that doesn’t that go against all the propaganda that schools are telling children what to believe.
- Facebook User: This is where I graduated from high school. Dear lord this is horrid.
- Facebook User: Like I know that building this picture was taken in. Not surprised either.
- Facebook User: Some people are like lambs being brought to slaughter by these cults. Wake up. Science is real, while prophets may not be true. Don’t offer up your children to these religious groups. Take your kids to church if you wish. Then you will know what is being taught
- Facebook User: just like in some areas, the Mormon religion was allowed to have its strongholds adjacent to public schools.
- Facebook User: uneducated/brainwashed = controllable
- Facebook User: “The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass, God is waiting for you.” -Werner Heisenberg. As an Ohio science teacher, I appreciate their prayers.
- Facebook User:
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