Pastor Tim Feiertag Speaks to the Teachings of LifeWise

At our informational session this past February, we gathered concerned parents and Clergy members together to share our concerns about LifeWise with the community. Pastor Tim Feiertag was a featured speaker. Pastor Tim is a 5th generation Lutheran pastor, a former social worker, and has been the Pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Everett since 2016.

He spoke extemporaneously about the disturbing “us vs. them” mentality, and the unkind and discriminatory views against LGBTQIA+ families inherent in the LifeWise program. A transcript of his remarks, lightly edited for clarity, is below:

“First, I want to talk about the idea of what constitutes a core part of the curriculum, because that's one of the keys about the structure of the RTRI. So, the kids are missing out on lunch and recess.

In looking at the clergy shirt I'm wearing, you might rightly guess that as a little one I was a goody-two-shoes. But in fifth grade, I was sent to the principal's office. And the infraction happened during lunch. I learned an important lesson about peer pressure during that lunch, a lesson that was crucial to my education as a student.

A critical aspect of public education is to learn how to be part of our society, to be a successful participant in our common civic life. When kids are missing recess and lunch, they're not just missing food and a game; they're missing a critical piece of the education that is required to be an active participant in our society.

So I'm concerned about that definition, that lunch is not part of the core curriculum. It absolutely is, in my experience.

I'm also concerned about peer pressure in a different direction. One of my colleagues shared her experience with me. Her nephew lives in Ohio and attends a school where LifeWise has already had an established program. My colleague is a pastor. She's also a lesbian. When she found out that her nephew wanted to attend this program, she had a conversation with him. “You know that what they teach is against what our family believes. You know that what they teach would send me as your aunt to hell. Why are you interested in that program?”

He responded, “I don't want to be the weird kid who's not going.”

Because of the structure of this program, when kids are removed in the middle of the day, school becomes a learning lab for this religious program. When the kids return to school, they aren't focused on their classwork; they're focused on how to implement the religious teachings they just received off campus.

Those are my primary concerns about this program.”

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This is the second post in a series of three, where we feature the words of our charter Clergy members. Each of them was featured in a recent Everett Herald article, where their robust perspectives were merely summarized and weakened. We wanted to showcase their strong views in their own words.