While Alaskans are increasingly rejecting traditional brick and mortar public schools in favor of home, religious and private schooling options, about half of the state believes that even state-run schools should permit teachers to offer specifically Christian prayers in the classroom.
A new report by Pew Research breaks down how each state thinks about the highly contentious issue.
“Renewed debates are happening across the United States about the place of religion – especially Christianity – in public schools,” the Pew report states. “An evenly divided Supreme Court recently upheld a ban on what would have been the nation’s first religious public charter school, in Oklahoma. Texas lawmakers are considering requiring public schools to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms, while a federal appeals court struck down a similar law in Louisiana earlier this month. And legal battles persist over prayer at school sporting events and making time for prayer during the school day.”
In Alaska, 49% of respondents favored allowing public school teachers to lead their classes in prayers that refer to Jesus by name, while 50% opposed the idea. Nationwide, 52% of respondents favored school prayers and 46% opposed it.
A separate Pew report found that 56% of Alaskans identifed as Christian in 2024.
The data comes from Pew Research Center’s 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study (RLS). The survey of nearly 37,000 U.S. adults was large enough to break out results in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
In total, 22 states had a majority of adults say they favor letting teachers to lead classes in prayers that refer to Jesus. Support for Christian prayer in schools is particularly high in parts of the South, including Mississippi (81%), Alabama (75%), Arkansas (75%), Louisiana (74%) and South Carolina (71%). Other Southern states, such as Oklahoma, Kentucky and West Virginia, are also among the states with the most support of Christian prayer in schools (67% in each state favor it).
In 12 states and the District of Columbia, more adults said they opposed allowing teachers to lead classes in prayers that refer to Jesus. Three of these states are on the West Coast: Oregon (65%), Washington (61%) and California (56%).
Alaska was among 16 that states are closely divided, with no statistically significant differences in the shares who favor or oppose allowing teachers to lead their students in prayers that mention Jesus.
When it comes to more generic prayers, that only refer to “God,” support in favor of school prayer is 57% nationally, with Alaska favoring the more generic prayers 54% to 45%.
ALASKA WATCHMAN DIRECT TO YOUR INBOX
PERCENT OF ALASKANS WHO ARE CHRISTIAN
A separate Pew report found that 56% of Alaskans identifed as Christian in 2024, down slightly from 62% in 2014. Broken down by denomination, Pew found that Alaskans identify under the following categories.
— Evangelical Protestant: 26%
— Mainline Protestant: 9%
— Historically Black Protestant: 1%
— Catholic: 15%
— Later-day Saint (Mormon): 3%
— Orthodox: 1%
— Jehovah’s Witness: <1%
— Other Christian: 2%
6% of Alaskans identify as some other religion
— Jewish: 1%
— Muslim: <1%
— Buddhist: 1%
— Hindu: <1%
— Something else: 4%
33% of Alaskans say they are “religiously unaffiliated”
— Atheist: 3%
— Agnostic: 9%
— Nothing in particular: 21%
18 Comments
Stop. Keep your mythology to your selves at church at home but not at public schools. Leave the rest of us alone.
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Yes. So the logical solution is that unfettered school choice is the best path forward for everybody. A cornucopia of school options from parochial (all flavors of religion) to secular including subject emphasized options such as STEM-centric or humanities-centric, etc. and the constant fighting and politicizing, and the maneuvering and muscling for control of public education goes away. Student outcomes improve markedly, costs go down, you get near unanimous agreement regarding funding, the more disadvantaged/marginalized get better access to educational options that increase their ability for socioeconomic mobility,.. You don’t get to shovel your ideology onto my kids and I don’t get to shovel my ideology onto yours; your kids (if you have any) don’t have to be led in prayer and be “mythologized” as you put it, and my kids can go to a school that is founded upon Judeo-Christian morals and Western principles, and other parents/families can CHOOSE what kind of education THEY decide is best for THEIR children. But most importantly, the students are better off. And if the students are better off, then everybody wins.
Manny, you are already alone. That is why you come to this site, for connection. To feel like you have purpose. Obviously you don’t have any friends to keep you occupied enough, so you come here to harass others and get rebuked as some twisted form of affection. You are alone and cling to Inclusivity because that is the only way anyone accept you. Only you don’t even accept yourself. Stranded on the island of misfit toys, but you aren’t even a toy that anyone can play with other than sticking it somewhere stinky. Poor, lonely Manny.
Rah rah! Hear, hear! That’s Manny in a nutshell.
Christian students have never been prohibited from praying on their own in public schools. But teachers leading Christian prayers in class, on taxpayer time, is blatantly unconstitutional. Anyone familiar with the Establishment Clause knows this.
Students of other religions would be disenfranchised if Christian prayers were led. Is the teacher expected to lead prayers for all religions? Students can pray at school, at home, in the forest, on the sea……just not led by teachers.
REVOLUTION, REFORMATION, REVIVAL
pray…………….prepare……………proceed
Yes, perhaps we should just get it over with and rename this country The United States of Christ.
Please take your kids, out of these evil schools.
Schools are not evil. They are inclusive, which is something Donald hates.
You know, I own some old books that were tossed by the public schools in the Midwest a decade or two before I was born. They’re not only Christian, but explicitly Catholic. I’m inclined to ask, regarding the idea of the separation of Church and State, whether or not the particular mores of a community have any bearing on what is done or not done in our public schools? For instance, in Alaska, we focus on Native culture and history in a way that they do not in Massachusetts, for instance. It seems there should be some curricula variability from state to state in our nation, since there’s so much rich, varied history in each state. But beyond history, why shouldn’t our public schools reflect and enforce the mores of particular communities? And why couldn’t that include prayer, especially in times of crisis, locally or nationally? Does it really need to be forbidden?
Prayer is not forbidden. Children CAN pray at school on their own.
REVOLUTION, REFORMATION, REVIVAL
PRAY……………PREPARE………….PROCEED!
We are given FREEDOM!
PUT THE TEN COMMANDMENTS BACK UP IN SCHOOLS!!!! REMOVE THE LIBRARIANS PORN AND REPLACE IT WITH THE GOD GIVEN BILL OF RIGHTS!
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Christians love to shove their religion in everyone’s face
Yeah. Christians and the LGBT are two sides of the same coin. So many parallels. Hell, even both sides fail to police their own when it comes to the predation of minors. If you all would deal with your local pedos, that would be great! But instead, you will just keep bickering with each other about whos daddy is better. Spiritual immaturity from all you. Grow up.