One of our community outreaches we’ve done, really since SHoWLE was founded, is sponsoring a family through the Lucas County Children’s Services. They match us with a family and we donate gifts to help make their holiday season a merry one. Now through December 8th we are collecting gifts. Check out the details below.
Thank you to all the donors for another excellent gift drive. Here is the result of our work:
Most of you know we have been focused on the growth of Lifewise Academy and the inherent problems it creates for our public schools. President Doug Berger has been working for a few months with a team made up of a cross-section of people concerned with Lifewise. It was led and hosted by Honesty for Ohio Education and on August 29th they released a tool-kit and other information the public can use to limit or eliminate the damage done by Lifewise.
For those new to the issue, Lifewise is a Released Time Religious Instruction (RTRI) program that, with parental permission, removes kids from their public school and takes them off-campus to a Bible school class during the school day.
This is a problem on many levels. Lifewise refuses to have their program before or after school, they have used friends in the state legislature to strong arm districts who won’t let them operate, and the program is less than transparent in their operations.
The tool-kit goes over in more detail all the issues with the Lifewise program.
SHoWLE opposes RTRI on church and state grounds and would love for districts not to have a policy at all. But we have been working with the Honesty team to come up with some solutions that protect the school districts and the children involved. These protections are missing from the state law Lifewise is abusing. The tool-kit includes a model policy that districts should adopt or use to revise their current policy if they have one.
Honesty and SHoWLE oppose HB 445 and SB 293 which would require school districts to have an RTRI policy but would not address the serious issues raised about Lifewise.
Our President Doug Berger got to help make the presentation on the 29th and here is a copy of the remarks he planned to make but due to time constraints was not able to speak from them entirely.
My name is Douglas Berger and I am the founder and president of the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie. I have been following this issue since 2014 when the law that Lifewise is abusing was passed in the Ohio Legislature. Ohio Revised Code 3313.6022 was never intended to be used to allow the mass movement of public school children from the school to a Bible class in the middle of their school day. The law was intended to give high school students the chance to gain course credit for religious classes they might attend during the day in addition to their regular course work. The law sat on the books for almost 10 years before Lifewise came into existence and abused the law for their own ends.
Released time has been part of the fabric of the public school since the US Supreme Court case Zorach v Clauson was decided in 1952. All schools have policies now that allow for students to be taken out of school by parents for religious reasons. I know from my own history that some of my classmates would leave school to participate in Ash Wednesday mass and return to school with ash on their forehead. I also know that some rural Hancock county schools, my home county, have had RTRI programs since the 1970s. This is a common occurrence.
The issue isn’t Released time but the abuse of it by Lifewise and any program that refuses to operate before or after school as has been done for more than 50 years by other operators who actually respect the public schools in which they exist.
Lifewise stated goal is to convert children to their brand of Christianity and to turn the public schools into religious schools.
I am a taxpayer and firm supporter of the public schools. The use of released time in the middle of the school day hurts the education of not only the kids who attend the program but the kids who are left behind.
I also have major concerns with how Lifewise operates and I know that some have problems with the theology they teach which they refuse to freely share with anyone. They are known to bully districts that don’t cooperate or to use “friends” in state and local government to lean on them. There are now two bills in the legislature, one in the House is HB 445 and the one in the Senate is SB 293 that would force school districts to adopt policies under ORC 3313.6022 — which wouldn’t contain any guardrails to protect children. That is what Lifewise wants so they can get around local districts who value all students education more than the religious beliefs of a few.
Let me restate that Lifewise doesn’t need the law to operate. They could start up a new program in any district today but they want the state to force all districts in Ohio to allow them to operate during the school day. If a district refuses to allow Lifewise to interrupt the school day it isn’t violating a parent’s 1st amendment right to guide the education of their children. They can always put the student in private school or in a program that operates before or after school.
I don’t care that Lifewise is Christian and I wouldn’t care about the religion or non-religion of a program that wants to disrupt a school day. I would still oppose the disruption.
I urge everyone to ask some serious questions if your district has a Lifewise program or if they are planning on coming to your district. Work with your school board to install the guardrails missing from Ohio’s Released Time law to protect your children and your school district. Some of those guardrails are mentioned in the toolkit and also talk to your legislator about this issue and convince them why guardrails are needed and why this needs to be left up to the individual school districts.
Thank you
For more information about this issue and to view and download the took-kit visit:
Our current service project is to host a free movie and pizza for kids at the West Toledo Branch Library each month. We have had good turn out each time, averaging about 20 kids and some caregivers. We would like to continue this project into 2025. If you can help fund the project please do.
Here is message from our President Douglas Berger:
The first place I lived when I moved to Toledo 8 years ago was on Lewis Avenue in the Five Points neighborhood. The nearest library branch was West Toledo in Library Village. This is a classic Tudor style building and is busy much of the time.
Our co-founder Shawn grew up in the Library Village area and wanted to do a service project that was focused on the kids in the area. This area is moderate to low income area and with that people have money at the beginning of the month and by the end of the month not so much. Shawn hatched the idea of showing a movie and offering free pizza and other snacks for the kids at the end of the month.
We show movies from the Disney library and provide Marco’s Pizza and other snacks like baby carrots and bananas. We don’t talk about Humanism or our group since that is what churches tend to do when having free kid activities — proselytize. We just want the kids to come to the basement auditorium, sit back, and have fun for a couple of hours.
Shawn and several of us have funded the project through September but now we need your help. It can cost up to $100 for each event and we would like to continue the project for a year. We would need at least $300 to finish 2024 and $1200 to cover the whole of 2025. We will be looking for additional sources of funding but we hope you can help now.
It is that time of year for membership renewals. All memberships purchased a year ago expire on 09/30/2024. We hope that those who memberships need to be renewed will do so.
You can start the process on ourMembers page on the website. Login and on the Account overview page click on the renew box. Not sure how to login to our website? We made a handy dandy tutorial linked below:
You can renew or upgrade your membership from the Account Overview page. We also ask that if you can, check the Auto Renew box so it will automatically renew your membership next year giving you the peace of mind that it will be renewed without missing a beat.
Here is a list of members who need to renew. If you feel you shouldn’t be on the list, login and check your status and if you are still concerned reach out to President Doug and he will verify your expiration date.
Michaelene G.RENEWED
David L.
Tim R. RENEWED
Bruce G.RENEWED
Brian T.
Michael K.
jules r.
Rob W.
Debbie P.RENEWED
Peggy C.RENEWED
Margarette W.
Mallori T.RENEWED
Derrick S.
Jerry PRENEWED
Derek W.RENEWED
Louis F
David S.RENEWED
Robyn P.
TK B.RENEWED
You can also update your contact information and preferences on the Edit your profile page.
Public schools all over the country and especially in Ohio are being invaded by a Christian Nationalist group called LifeWise. They claim to be teaching character values using Bible stories but in reviewing some of these Bible stories, we have to ask, Do we want to be teaching young kids about Human sacrifice for example?
LifeWise sets up in a local school district and with parental permission take kids off-campus for some Bible learning disguised as Character and value education. They refuse to let the public review their curriculum and is in fact suing someone who legally obtained a copy and posted it online.
Maybe this is why LifeWise refuses to let people outside of LifeWise see their curriculum:
In the Elementary curriculum, that is noted for Kindergarten through 3rd grade, Lesson 8 is about the character trait “sacrifice”. One segment of the lesson talks about God testing Abraham. For those who don’t know the story, God tells Abraham to take his son up into the mountain and sacrifice him to show his loyalty to God.
God wants Abraham to murder his own son to show much he “loves” God.
Abraham does what God says and takes his son up the mountain, builds an alter, and is just about ready to do the deed and an Angel stops him and lets him know that since he was ready to murder Isaac he knew he feared God (ie. would do what God Wanted).
Side note: Isaac had no clue his father was prepared to murder him.
So, not only is LifeWise teaching little kids that human sacrifice can be a good thing as long as it is for God, here is this tidbit
Example of a LifeWise Lesson about Human Sacrifice
The lesson is to have 2nd and 3rd graders act out the Abraham story and for the other kids to provide sound effects. Have the kids act out human sacrifice for God? Some kids have issues with what is real and what is not so should we be teaching this particular story? We don’t think so.
That isn’t the only problematic story. Here is a lesson about the trait submission:
Submission means learning to be a good follower. Instead of doing our own thing, we can do what we are asked. We don’t talk back or demand our way. We choose to “follow the leader,” whether that is God, our parents, our teachers or other good authorities God puts in our lives.
LifeWise Lesson Example
In an ironic twist, the title of the lesson is “Jacob’s New Name” and some of the activities are kids choosing a new name as a game. Yet, Joel Penton, the founder of LifeWise is against kids choosing their own name to socially transition at school. Also LifeWise training documents make clear that the order of authority for children is God then their Parents.
If this was a secular lesson about submission (it wouldn’t be called that in the first place), the teacher would also talk about caveats like are you being hurt or ‘has an adult asked you to keep a secret.’ Unlike this Bible story we don’t teach kids to never question why an adult or parent is asking them to do something. There will be things a kid must do that they don’t want to do — like their homework or mowing the yard, but typically they need to “submit” as long as it won’t hurt them in some way that typically is illegal if uncovered.
And what if a child actually murders their classmate and they say they did it because God told them to do it?
When we do presentations to other groups about SHoWLE, we talk about three well known Toledo natives who are or were humanists. Until today we didn’t promote them on our website. That oversight is fixed.
Starting today you can find short bios about the three humanists from the Toledo area we talk about: Gloria Steinem, Edward Lamb, and Madalyn Murray O’Hair.
Each page gives a short biography, their connection to Humanism and we tried to add a quote that fits the Humanist philosophy.
We hope this is just a start of a bigger project so if you know of Toledo humanists who should be added, let us know through our contact form.
One of the big events I’ve wanted to have for the members and friends of SHoWLE was a winter solstice gathering. Many Humanist groups around the country have one and my former group in Columbus had a catered banquet each year in December. I would like to announce we will be having a Winter Solstice Potluck on Saturday December 21, 2024.
I initially had plans for a Winter Solstice Potluck to happen in 2020 and we know why we didn’t have one. Then after the pandemic subsided SHoWLE did struggle to get its feet back under it. I am confident that in 2024 we are at least at the place we were at the start of 2020.
The catered banquet was used as a fundraiser for my Columbus group but through the years the costs of the banquet wiped out any “profit” from selling tickets to the event and people had a certain expectation when the event is catered. You buy a ticket to a dinner and you expect table service and beverages etc….
I like a potluck setup better especially for a Humanist group who gather as a community to observe the solstice.
We also don’t have to sell you tickets to attend and that way we can have something else to fundraise off of like door prizes or a raffle. And I can assure you there will be plenty of opportunities.
A potluck also keeps the event open and inclusive to the community at large. That way you don’t need to spend $30 a plate for dinner. It also helps us “cater” to people with special diets either they have a medical issue or they choose to be vegan for example, a potluck is a better way to have food for every type of diet.
The Winter Solstice Potluck is tentatively scheduled for December 21 at the Yager Center at Swan Creek Metropark. In the fall we will have more details and dish sign-up list to try to avoid too much duplication. Other details will follow soon after.
I am excited to have this event even I was sweat in the heat and humidity of June.
Mark this on your calendar. You can keep up on details as we add them on the event page on our website
*UPDATE*
Humanist and feminist Gloria Steinem will be our keynote speaker. She will appear via Zoom to say a few words. SHoWLE is thrilled she agreed to speak
SHoWLE enjoyed another Old West End Festival on June 1st and 2nd this year. We had several people join our email list and we talked to many more who stopped by. New this year was a donation collection box and we brought in $9.18.
The Prize Wheel was just as popular with the kids and the young at heart but it did suffer some damage from overnight rain between Saturday and Sunday. We will have it restored and better than ever for the Maumee Summer Fair in August.
SHoWLE wants to thank the volunteers that spent their weekend helping staff the booth — Ed, Michaelene, Anne, and Shawn. We also thank the donors that funded the booth space and much of the swag we handed out this weekend.
May 4th is the National Day of Reason in 2024 and into the future. One of the ways we have wanted to mark the occassion is to have the city council issue a resolution marking the day in the city. We weren’t prepared for how hard it really is to get it done. That’s why we started a petition.
Back in 2019, SHoWLE reached out to the Mayor of Toledo about issuing a proclamation but his office declined and then the pandemic happened and our efforts fell by the wayside.
This year we decided to focus on the city council since they have issued resolutions for a whole host of issues with the most recent being demanding a cease fire in Gaza. So how hard could it be?
There is no written formal process but in talking to a long time community activist, they suggested emailing the council president with the request. We did that and heard nothing back. Not even a thank you for sending this email. After reaching out again, the president responded back that our request had been missed and she declined to sponsor a resolution from us.
A resolution has to be sponsored by a member of council and this being a resolution from a non-religious group to mark a day about reason, there were not many council members to approach who would welcome our request. We identified another council member known for their progressive stances on the issues and advocacy for social justice and reached out to them. Never heard back. Again not even an acknowledgement they got the message.
In consulting our community activist friend again, he mentioned that council is innudated with requests like ours all the time, they have no formal office or staff at city hall, and most times they won’t act on anything unless they know citizens are requesting it and will back their efforts.
That’s where our petition comes into the picture.
We’ve started a petition with the goal to ask the Toledo City council to adopt a Day of Reason resolution. The National Day of Reason is May 4th. so it is most likely too late this year to get a resolution adopted but we will share the petition with the council for next year’s Day of Reason. Won’t you help us out?
Starting today you can find a SHoWLE community server on the Discord platform. Participation is free and open to anyone who wants to participate but it does require an invitation.
You need to create an account on Discord. You will need to install the Discord app or use the browser version to access the group.
The good news the invites are free. A limited time one is with this post. If it is expired feel free to reach out to us and ask for an invite. If you are a member of SHoWLE you get a special invite and get a special role on the server.
This is just another social media platform to have some discussions and fun outside formal meetings. It is moderated and there are some rules for the group.