Religiosity and reactions to terrorism Amy Adamczyk a,⇑ , Gary LaFree b a John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the Graduate Center, City University of New York, United States b University of Maryland, United States article info Article history: Received 6 January 2014 Revised 26 November 2014 Accepted 5 December 2014 Available online 20 December 2014 Keywords: Religion Terrorism Crime Public opinion Conservative views abstract Although many of the world’s most serious outbreaks of conflict and violence center on religion, social science research has had relatively little to say about religion’s unique role in shaping individuals’ attitudes about these events. In this paper we investigate whether Americans’ religious beliefs play a central role in shaping attitudes toward the continuing threat of terrorism and their willingness to assist officials in countering these perceived threats. Our analysis of an original data collection of almost 1600 Americans shows that more religious respondents are more likely to express concerns about terrorism. However, this relationship is mediated by their level of conservatism. We also find that more religious respondents are more likely to claim that they will assist government officials in countering terrorism. This relationship remained even after accounting for conservatism, and people’s general willingness to help police solve crimes like breaking and entering. Ó 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Grim and Finke (2007:633) argue that although many of the most serious outbreaks of violence and conflict in the world today center on religion, social science research has relatively little to say about religion’s unique role in these events. This critique can be softened somewhat in the aftermath of the coordinated attacks of September 11, 2001. Along with other high profile terrorist strikes around the world, these attacks served to focus increased attention on the role of religion as a force that can powerfully shape individuals’ attitudes toward political violence (Juergensmeyer, 2003; Bail, 2012; Disha et al., 2011; Welch, 2012). Nevertheless, much of the recent research has focused only on Muslims (McCauley and Scheckter, 2008; Tyler et al., 2010; Sun et al., 2011) while more inclusive research about the connections between religion and violent political conflict remains heavily influenced by a body of leading studies from the 1960s and 1970s. This research concluded that contemporary Americans have largely privatized religion and hence are far less likely today than in the past to use it to legitimate public attitudes or actions (Berger, 1967; Luckmann, 1967; Berger et al., 1973). Of course, Berger et al. (1999) and others (Casanova, 1994; Simko, 2012) are well aware of the fact that religion has not disappeared from public or private life, but rather that it now competes with a wide range of other institutions that share responsibility in developing convincing explanations for critical life events. Indeed, Putnam (2000) has shown that almost half of association memberships in the United States are directly related to religious congregations and that half of Americans’ volunteering takes place in a religious context. Taking a cue from these recent investigations of the continuing importance of religion in framing reactions to major life events, this study focuses on whether Americans’ religious beliefs play a central role in shaping attitudes toward the continuing threat of terrorism and responses to it. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2014.12.006 0049-089X/Ó 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. ⇑ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: aadamczyk@jjay.cuny.edu (A. Adamczyk), garylafree@gmail.com (G. LaFree). Social Science Research 51 (2015) 17–29 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Social Science Research journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ssresearch