"Jeopardy!" fans were aghast on social media following Tuesday night's show during which all three contestants were at a loss when asked to complete a line of the Lord's Prayer.
The riddle, worth $200, read, "Matthew 6:9 says, 'Our Father, which art in heaven,' This 'be thy name.'"
Game-show contestants Suresh Krishnan — a networking engineer who was on a five-game streak that night — nonprofit fundraiser Laura Blyler Scanland and physics grad student Joe Seibert were visibly stumped as they stood behind their podiums silently until host Mayim Bialik revealed the answer: "Hallowed."
(Krishnan ultimately won the game, adding $14,401 to his total winnings, but he was eliminated during Wednesday night's episode by English professor Holly Hassel.)
The Lord's Prayer, although not so hallowed for Tuesday's contestants, is Christianity's most ubiquitous prayer and has been recited immeasurable times in churches, at meal times, in bedrooms and at sporting events for generations.
It has squarely made its way into pop culture too: Kristen Stewart's Snow White recited it in 2012's "Snow White and the Huntsman" and Will Ferrell played a politician who butchers it in the 2012 comedy "The Campaign," memorably praying: "Our father, Art, who is up in Heaven, Aloe Vera be thy name."
Australian nun Sister Janet Mead turned it into a 1970s psychedelic rock song that charted on Billboard's Hot 100 for 13 weeks. And recovering addicts and alcoholics recite it to conclude 12-step meetings in tens of thousands of rooms across the country.
Riled-up "Jeopardy!" viewers flooded Twitter to remark on the TV moment, claiming that biblical illiteracy was symbolic of a nation in decline.
"This was a clue on Jeopardy last night & not one contestant got it right," wrote Twitter user Jason Howerton, sharing a clip of the episode. "This may seem like a silly example of cultural decay. But my 5-year-old knows the entire Lord's Prayer and loves to recite it at dinner time. Parents can change the world with how they raise their children"
Franklin Graham, president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, quipped: "Twitter erupted with ['Jeopardy!'] fans who were surprised that 3 smart contestants were unable to fill in the blank with a word from the Lord's Prayer. We have lost so much Biblical literacy & basic awareness of the things of God's Word. This moving away from Biblical values will equal double jeopardy for our nation."
"I'm an atheist and even I knew the answer to that lord's prayer question. #Jeopardy," tweeted another user.
"How can those Jeopardy! nerds not know this answer. Have they never listened to Iron Maiden?" added another.
According to a 2022 Pew Research Center report, large numbers of Americans have been gradually moving away from Christianity since the 1990s, and an increasing number of U.S. adults now cite their religious identities as atheist, agnostic or "nothing in particular."
Pew said that the growing trend is reshaping the religious landscape in America; the organization projects that the number of U.S. Christians of all ages will decrease from 64% to between "a little more than half (54%) and just above one-third (35%)" of all Americans by 2070. Over the same period, Pew added, people who described themselves as having no religious affiliation would grow from the current 30% to somewhere between 34% and 52% of the U.S. population.
In 2015, the L.A. Times' David Lauter and Hailey Branson-Potts reported that the interaction between religion and politics has something to do with the decline in Christianity. They cited scholars who believe that close ties between traditional religion and conservatism, particularly on issues such as same-sex marriage, have led many younger Americans to cut ties with organized religion.
Their story quoted Phil Zuckerman, a sociology professor at Pitzer College who specializes in studying secularism, as saying that religious conservatives' opposition to same-sex marriage "is turning off so many people from Christianity."
