This is the Wilmington Standard Daily Update for Thursday March 19 2026.

According to the StarNews Online, the New Hanover County Board of Education is considering a partnership with LifeWise Academy to provide Bible education to students during school hours.  LifeWise is based out of Columbus Ohio and is already in more than 1100 schools in 34 states impacting over 100,000 students just this year alone.

The program would require students to have parental permission to get involved.  LifeWise also meets off campus and accepts no public funds of any kind.  Students would be transported during school hours at elective time periods.

The push back from the liberal and the uninformed is as boring as it is expected.  They say it violates the separation of church and state, and second they object to schools being used as vessels of indoctrination by conservative Christians.

First, there is no separation of church and state.  That phrase is nowhere mentioned in our Constitution.  Congress is specifically prohibited from establishing a national religion.  But the idea that religion must have no impact on – and no place in – government at any level would be one that the founders of our country would scoff at.  Indeed, they relied on churches to fill in the gaps of secular law and impart morality to those elected to office.  The state is not protected from the church.  The church is protected from the state – so the church can go about its business proclaiming the truth of the Gospel and advising the State and those who run it. 

Second, these same people who are crying out against indoctrination of Bible study classes and using the schools to preach a message of hope are the same ones who have no problem with school districts “transing” kids without their parent’s knowledge, teaching sexual practices as normal - again without consulting parents, and who think it is absolutely find for little Johnny in the first grade to read books most adults should not morally read themselves.  Their cries of indoctrination ring hollow – for that is what they have been doing for several decades in our schools – which is why we live in a morally bankrupt society today.

Please make sure you let Republican School Board Members Pete Wildeboer, Josie Barnhart, Pat Bradford and Melissa Mason know that you support this new partnership with LifeWise Academy. 

Afterall, isn’t school all about learning truth?

For the Wilmington Standard, I’m Reuel Sample.  Thanks for listening.