Religion has become increasingly contentious in recent years. Faith-based discrimination, hostility and violence seem to have increased worldwide. But how can faith lead to conflict? In this article, we test the impact of two important dimensions of religion that have been neglected in previous research: the belief in ‘one true religion’ and perceptions of threats by other religious groups. Putting these two potential drivers to the test, we conducted a representative survey experiment with 972 respondents in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Results show that one of the tested dimensions, perceptions of threats by others, increases the support to use violence to defend one’s own group. This is particularly the case for religiously intolerant respondents with characteristics such as pre-existing threat perceptions, unfavorable views on intermarriage, or belief in the superiority of their own faith. In contrast, we find relatively weak evidence that the prime of ‘one true religion’ increases the readiness to use violence. Our findings have important implications for policy: We conclude that appeals by leaders to threats by others and intolerance toward other faiths can contribute to more conflict. Political and religious leaders should refrain from capitalizing on such notions and should promote tolerance towards other faiths instead.

近年来，宗教变得越来越有争议。基于信仰的歧视、敌意和暴力似乎在世界范围内有所增加。但是信仰怎么会导致冲突呢？在本文中，我们测试了之前研究中忽略的两个重要宗教维度的影响：对“一个真正的宗教”的信仰和对其他宗教团体威胁的看法。为了测试这两个潜在的驱动因素，我们在坦桑尼亚达累斯萨拉姆对 972 名受访者进行了具有代表性的调查实验。结果表明，被测试的维度之一，对他人威胁的看法，增加了使用暴力保护自己群体的支持。对于宗教不宽容的受访者来说尤其如此，这些受访者具有诸如预先存在的威胁感知、对通婚的不利看法、或相信自己信仰的优越性。相比之下，我们发现相对较弱的证据表明“一个真正的宗教”的素数会增加使用暴力的意愿。我们的发现对政策具有重要意义：我们得出的结论是，领导人对他人威胁的诉求和对其他信仰的不容忍可能会导致更多的冲突。政治和宗教领袖应避免利用此类观念，而应促进对其他信仰的宽容。