LifeWise Academy is leading the charge to increase the number of schools nationwide required to allow off-site Bible instruction during school hours, constitutional advocates said during a webinar hosted by Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
The $35 million evangelical organization is part of a movement pushing more states to adopt “released time” or “released time for religious instruction,” a practice approved in a 1950s U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
“They actually wrote model legislation and gave it to the National Association of Christian Lawmakers who have then taken it to their individual states and pushed this,” said Zachary Parrish, executive director of operations for the Secular Education Association.
Zachary Parrish
So far, 16 states have laws mandating school districts to comply with religious groups that want to take students off campus for religious instruction during the day. Kentucky, Oklahoma, Indiana, Iowa, Montana and Texas approved such legislation this year and last, while similar bills in Alabama, Georgia and Nebraska failed to advance in 2025.
Known for its bright red buses and T-shirts worn by students on release days, LifeWise Academy got its start in Ohio in 2018 doing what it does now on a much bigger scale — spreading conservative religious beliefs to children in public schools.
“The program is built to use peer-to-peer proselytizing and peer pressure to funnel kids into not only their program, but their specific very narrow view of Christianity, which just happens to be evangelical in flavor,” Parrish said. “They have deep political ties to a lot of Project 2025 organizations and a lot of political think-tanks.”
The program and others like it were made possible by the 1952 Supreme Court ruling in Zorach v. Clauson, which held that release time policies are constitutional provided the religious teaching occurs off-site and participation is voluntary with parental consent, said Ian Smith, staff attorney with Americans United. “The school cannot encourage students to take any release time instruction, they can’t be involved in (supervising) the released-time classes except for some very limited administrative work.”
The use of release time after Zorach was limited mostly to churches and other religious groups offering programs in local school districts. Most districts, meanwhile, had the option of refusing released-time proposals in most states.
But in the early 2000s “you started to see a lot more of a push in the state legislatures to mandate that schools allow release time if a parent requested it,” Smith said.
Besides the “shall” states where accommodation is required, 15 “may” states give districts the option of refusing released-time programs and 19 have no laws on the issue. But LifeWise is the most organized in trying to open more districts to off-site religious instruction, Smith explained.
“There are a lot of politicians and a lot of religious organizations that see these mandates as a way to funnel kids into religious education. We’re starting to see a lot more complaints about released time and about LifeWise.”
The ministry claims its reach has almost doubled since last year and it is now working with nearly 100,000 students in 1,100 schools across 34 states.
“We intend to keep growing thanks to the outpouring of support for LifeWise throughout the country,” CEO Joel Penton said. “Every new program launched means more students hearing timeless truths, developing strong moral character and building a foundation that will guide them for the rest of their lives.”
The nondenominational organization said its curriculum is based on The Gospel Project, a product of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Lifeway Christian Resources. It’s designed to expose children to the entire Bible in five years.
“We examine how the Bible story ties into and points to the big picture of the gospel. We consider our failures, sinfulness and need of a Savior as well as Jesus’ victory in accomplishing for us what we could not achieve for ourselves,” publicity says.
Molly Gaines
But the Secular Education Association hears routinely from parents whose children feel pressured to attend LifeWise sessions or feel confused about their families’ religious beliefs or lack of belief, said Molly Gaines, executive director.
“We have Jewish children who are coming home crying, asking why they can’t believe in Jesus, why they have to be Jewish, because they want to go (with the other students). They don’t understand why they don’t get to go on this seemingly fun field trip in the middle of the day.”
Parents also have reported their children coming home from school upset by LifeWise participants who said their grandparents aren’t in heaven or that non-attenders are “going to burn in hell” along with those who don’t go to church, Gaines said. “And so that turns into trauma and crying at home and not being able to sleep at night because they’re worried about these things that their peers have told them.”
The program also teaches an extreme form of biblical literalism, Parrish added. “They’re teaching dinosaurs were on the Ark, that is a lesson in their curriculum. They’re teaching that the Jews killed Jesus. You can get into the anti-LGBTQ teachings and there are a lot of misogynist teachings in there. It really runs the gamut of what you would expect from fundamentalist evangelicalism.”
Citizens concerned about LifeWise coming into their schools should try immediately to determine if the organization is working behind the scenes to move in, said John Sutton, vice president of the Kentucky chapter of Americans United.
Residents in Oldham County, Ky. convinced the school board to unanimously reject the group’s release-time proposal in October by running newspaper ads, garnering media coverage and by having experts testify at public meetings.
LifeWise’s status as an outside group coming into the community gives their opponents an advantage, he added. “They’ve come in here to open a franchise and they’re trying to weasel their way into your schools. So be proactive in getting to know and build trust with your school board members. It does make a difference.”
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