The Ohio Satanic Temple has launched what it calls an instructional program from the Hellions Academy of Independent Learning (HAIL) at the Edgewood Elementary School in the Marysville School District.
Jennifer Jury, a LifeWise Academy program advocate, recently told Washington Watch: "This does seem for the most part like a publicity stunt in an attempt to get programs that are offering Christian Bible-based education to shut down."
The Satanic Temple is doing this under Ohio's Released Time Religious Instruction (RTRI) program, which is meant to allow public school students to travel off campus to learn about God and the Bible during school hours.
LifeWise Academy has successfully gotten the RTRI program in place in 31 U.S. states; in Jury's area of Westerville, Ohio, it allowed hundreds of children to attend LifeWise every week until October, when the Westerville City Schools Board of Education voted 4-0 to rescind the policy.
"LifeWise is alive and well in hundreds of communities around the country, but here in Westerville, our program has been suspended since the policy no longer is in place that allows us to operate," Jury relays. "There is legislation in the state House right now that would hopefully open the door for programs like ours to reopen."
LifeWise is a division of Stand for Truth, an event-based nonprofit ministry with a mission to reach public school students. It offers Bible education during school hours that is off school property, privately funded and parent-permitted, often during an elective class period. The curriculum promises to teach students the entire Bible in five years.
