Washington remains one of the 12 states and the District of Columbia who are home to more adults who oppose rather than favor Christian prayer in schools

Cassy Benefield
Washington State Standard

A new analysis published last week by the Pew Research Center shows differences between adults in Washington and Idaho and their views on prayer in public school.

Washington remains one of the 12 states and the District of Columbia who are home to more adults who oppose rather than favor Christian prayer in schools. More specifically, 61% of adults oppose allowing teachers to lead their classes in prayer that refer to Jesus with 37% in favor. Included in this list are California, Oregon, District of Columbia and much of New England.

Idaho is listed as one of 16 states populated by adults who are divided over prayers said by public school teachers that mention Jesus. The analysis found 44% opposing this kind of prayer in public schools with 55% who support it. Pew Research Center said this was not significant enough of a difference to place it in either category, factoring in the margin of error. States included alongside Idaho as divided are Montana, Arizona, New Mexico, Maine and Virginia.

The analysis — which came out of the Pew Research Religious Landscape Study published in February 2025 — went deeper and sought to answer what the percentages would be if the prayer in public school was more generic to “God” rather than to “Jesus.”

“Nationwide, a slightly larger share of Americans say they favor allowing teacher-led prayers referencing God (57%) than favor allowing teacher-led prayers specifically referencing Jesus (52%),” wrote Chip Rotolo in the June 23 Pew analysis.

Washington adults came significantly closer to the middle with this question with 41% still opposing prayer (compared to 61% opposing prayer with Jesus’ name) in public schools with 56% supporting them (compared to 37%).

This change may be owed to the religious life of non-Christian faiths in Washington. On the national level, when Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu adults were asked the question of teachers leading their classes in prayer to God but not a specific religion, the statistics in favor went up. While they didn’t go up significantly for Jewish adults (26% from 11%) and Buddhists (37% from 27%), the increase went to more than half in favor of prayer in school for Muslims (55% from 23%) and Hindus (56% from 31%).

When asked about generic prayers in public school, Idaho adults did not move the needle too drastically. However, they did move their state from the divided category into the in favor one,  with 58% adults in favor of prayer in public school (from 55%) and 41% opposed (from 44%).

More information about this analysis can be found online here. More information about the overall Religious Landscape Study, which surveyed nearly 37,000 U.S. adults from July 17, 2023, to March 4, 2023, can be found online here.

This article was first published by FāVS News, an online publication covering religion and ethics in the inland Northwest.