1 Introduction

I would like to thank three anonymous reviewers for their thorough and helpful feedback.

In the face of the current challenge to democracy posed by populism, the question of the integration and disintegration potential of religion in its political dimension has recently received renewed attention (Stolz and Huber 2014). In GermanyFootnote 2, the main direction of the relationship between Christian religiosity, acceptance of democracy, and populist attitudes is clear. As a mainstream phenomenon, Christian religiosity in Germany has been shown to correlate negatively with populist voting (Steinmann 2022; Siegers and Jedinger 2021; Pickel 2019) and positively with trust in political institutions (Roleder 2024; Pickel 2018, S. 289) and acceptance of democracy (Pickel 2022; Pickel and Pickel 2023). However, a distinction must be made between this mainstream liberal type and an exclusivist type. Exclusivist religiosity, a minority phenomenon in Germany, points in the opposite direction. This type, characterized by a closed religious identity and traditionalism, correlates negatively with trust in political institutions (Roleder 2024) and positively with populist voting behavior (Steinmann 2022) and populist attitudes (Schneider et al. 2021; Pickel et al. 2020).

As a means of explanation, most of the studies published so far refer to a primarily cognitivist understanding of religion, emphasizing its issue- and identity-related significance for political attitudes. They argue that religion is a factor in identityFootnote 3 politics and issue politics. Following this understanding, the greater acceptance of immigration by liberal religious groups is attributed to religious doctrines of equality and prosociality as well as the pro-migration positioning of the mainline churches (Hillenbrand 2020, p. 49; Siegers and Jedinger 2021, p. 153). Conversely, religious exclusivists reject immigrants because of the symbolic threat they pose to their exclusivist religious identity (Pickel et al. 2020). The voting effects of religiosity are explained in reference to religious party identification, which favors the Christian Democratic Party (Siegers and Jedinger 2021, p. 153). The link between conservative-exclusivist religiosity and populism is attributed to the thematic overlap that exists in relation to cultural homogeneity, gender relations, and the notion of family (Steinmann 2022, pp. 40f). This primarily cognitivist approach to religion, which places religious doctrines, discourses, and identity conflicts at the center of the argumentation, has a long research tradition, as a look at classic research contributions confirms (Allport 1954, pp. 444–460; Allport and Ross 1967).

Undoubtedly, the issue and identity dimensions of religion are essential to its political significance. As a novel and complementary approach, this study focuses on the function of religion in coping with contingencies as a factor that may have mediating effects on political trust and populist attitudes. Religiosity provides a religious way of coping with stressors, crises, and the fundamental uncertainty of life. This paper examines whether religiosity provides resources for coping with political contingencies and thereby contributes to democratic culture.

To the extent that religiosity supports a more optimistic worldview, it could dampen perceptions of threat and crisis among religious individuals. A more optimistic perspective could make political institutions appear less dysfunctional, thereby increasing trust in political institutions. Religious optimism could make people less susceptible to populist rhetoric that operates with fear and anger as central elements of its appeal. This hypothesis describes a possible non-thematic and non-identity-related political effect of religion that has received little attention so far.Footnote 4

More broadly, this study empirically examines what mediating factors are operative between Christian religiosity, political trust and populist attitudes. In addition to religious contingency coping, It considers immigration acceptance and generalized social trust as empirical mediators, modeling a multi-step explanation for the correlation between religion and its political outcomes.

First, I introduce the theory and formulate hypotheses (2), before presenting the sample and the methodological approach (3). The results of the analyses are interpreted (4) and summarized (5). Finally, I discuss the methodological limitations and the generalizability of my thesis, as well as the implications for research on the micro-constitution of democratic attitudes in the face of political stressors (6).

2 Theory and hypotheses

An overview of the hypotheses to be formed is shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1
figure 1

Overview of the hypotheses

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2.1 Religious contingency coping and anxiety about the future

Many theories of religion define coping with contingency as a central function of religion, with religion defined by reference to incommensurable transcendence (Krech 2021, pp. 83–85; Pollack 2018). In this understanding, religious coping with contingency is not a universal feature of human existence. Rather, there are differences between individuals in the extent to which religious coping with contingency is meaningful to them (Pollack 2008).

According to Lazarus and Folkman (1984), a coping process begins when individuals are confronted with a situation that they perceive as stressful. A stressful situation arises from a perceived overly demanding environment that is contrary to personal goals. When the stressful situation is viewed as relevant to personal well-being, the person is motivated to use mechanisms, such as cognitive reframing, that reduce the conflict. The outcome of this process, such as acceptance or anxiety, is largely determined by the effectiveness of these coping mechanisms.

Religious coping is a specific mode of coping among others. Empirical studies of religious coping regularly show that different dimensions of religion come into play when coping with contingencies. Religious meaning making, ritual practices, religious experiences, and support from the religious community combine in this process (Abu-Raiya and Pargament 2015, p. 25). Whether people engage in religious coping depends, among other things, on their own religiosity. The more pronounced their own religiosity is, the more likely individuals are to practice religious coping (Pargament and Raiya 2007).Footnote 5

The first hypothesis is as follows:

H1

Religious beliefs, practices, and experiences positively predict religious coping with contingency.

As a next step, I suggest that religious coping contributes to a more optimistic, less anxiety-driven attitude toward the future. The individual perspective on the future represents a classic case of confrontation with contingency, in that the future is fundamentally open and uncertain.

Cognitivist theories of emotion regard emotions as bodily expressions of the individual’s evaluation of objects (Döring 2006). In the case of one’s own perspective on the future, anxiety about the future results from a pessimistic evaluation of future prospects. According to cognitivist theories of emotion, a state of anxiety involves a cognitive and an evaluative dimension.

Appraisal theory of emotion emphasizes the subjective dimension of emotional appraisals of situations. Emotions represent how the object appears subjectively to the individual. Different individuals may experience different types and intensities of emotions in relation to the same stimulus. The differences in emotional responses can be attributed to different appraisal factors (Moors 2017). These factors relate to assessments of how relevant a situation is perceived to be (goal relevance), how the individual assesses their ability to cope with the situation (control), and how responsibility for the situation is attributed (agency).

Psychology of religion suggests that religiosity acts as an evaluative factor, especially in situations of high contingency. Ideas of divine help influence the control dimension (Newton and McIntosh 2010). Religious meaning making influences the relevance and acceptance of situations (Ramsay et al. 2019). Ideas of divine judgment affect the accountability dimension and can reduce feelings of anger (Tong and Teo 2018).

In addition, religiosity influences how individuals cope with experienced emotions. Religious individuals show, on average, more adaptive strategies for emotion regulation, emotional acceptance and reinterpretation of situations (Vishkin et al. 2019). Spiritual or religious rituals, such as prayer, serve to regulate emotions (Demmrich and Wolfradt 2018).

These religious factors have been shown to influence emotional experience. Studies points to links between religiosity and optimism (Whittington and Scher 2010), hope (Ai et al. 2007), and reduced anxiety (Koenig 2012).

Therefore, I hypothesize that religious contingency coping influences how individuals evaluate future prospects:

H2

Religious contingency coping reduces anxiety about the future.

2.2 Trust in political institutions, populism, and anxiety about the future

For a democracy to function, there must be a basic level of trust in the political institutions by its citizens (Warren 2018). Political trust motivates voter participation. A fundamental mistrust is associated with the election of populist parties (Hooghe 2018), which is also the case in Germany (Pickel 2019).

Judgements of political trust result from cognitive processes of acquiring and processing information, the alignment of political interests and the evaluation of performance (Listhaug and Jakobsen 2018). It seems plausible that a pronounced anxiety about the future reduces trust in political institutions through a perception of functional failure and in conjunction with populist framing. Citizens expect political institutions to prevent and resolve anxiety-ridden situations. A pronounced anxiety about the future may be perceived as a failure of political institutions, which should reduce institutional trust.

Moreover, fear encourages information seeking, making citizens more willing to question their previous political commitments and more open to persuasion (Brader 2005; Nai et al. 2017). Anxious voters rely less on established beliefs, such as party identification or ideology, and instead place more weight on current assessments such as specific political issues or candidates (Vasilopoulos and Marcus 2017). Fear increases support for policies that promise protection from the threat (Albertson and Kushner Gadarian 2015, p. 100–137). Populist framing casts doubt on the problem-solving abilities of established political institutions and actors. Populist rhetoric and anti-establishment framing, together with anxiety, can thus plausibly lead to an erosion of trust in established political institutions (Béland 2020).

Two recent studies from the German context illustrate the erosion of political trust through future anxiety and crisis perception: Independent of the objective economic situation, the level of subjective pension anxiety has a negative impact on political trust (Ingo Bode and Lüth 2018). Perceiving and being affected by crises reinforces populist attitudes and undermines trust in democracy (Zick and Sandal-Önal 2023, pp. 236, 238). This suggests a direct link from future anxiety to decreased institutional trust through perceptions of political failure and populist framing:

H3

Anxiety about the future reduces trust in political institutions.

Populism is related to the concept of institutional trust in that populism operates with a fundamental critique of established democratic institutions. While the exact definition of populism is disputed in the theoretical discussion, common concepts for the empirical assessment of populist attitudes have been established (Akkerman et al. 2014). A minimal definition of populist attitudes includes the idea of the decision-making sovereignty of the homogeneous people, opposition to the political elites and a quasi-Manichean distinction between good and evil. Populist attitudes are relevant because they predict support for populist parties (van Hauwaert and van Kessel 2018; Hawkins et al. 2020).

Since populist rhetoric operates with a model of social decay, it should resonate especially with individuals who have negative expectations about the future. Populist actors have been shown to employ negative messages and anxiety messages in their public communication more often than non-populist actors (Widmann 2021; Nai 2021). In Germany, perceiving uncertainty and being affected by crises reinforces populist attitudes (Zick and Sandal-Önal 2023, p. 236). Political anxiety predicts vote for Die Alternative für Deutschland, a right-wing populist party in Germany (Pickel 2019, p. 161). Status anxiety has been shown to promote support for populist actors in the U.S. (Mutz 2018).

Against this background, we formulate the hypothesis:

H4

Anxiety about the future promotes populist attitudes.

From the combination of H2, H3 and H4 follows a mediation:

H5A

Religiously reduced anxiety about the future acts as a mediator between religiosity and trust in political institutions.

H5B

Religiously reduced anxiety about the future acts as a mediator between religiosity and populist attitudes.

2.3 Further mediators: immigration skepticism and social trust

Institutional distrust and susceptibility to populism also depend on policy issues and identity conflicts. Immigration skepticism is known to be an important factor that correlates with both institutional mistrust (McLaren 2012) and populism (Siegers and Jedinger 2021).

Previous research on the relationship between migration acceptance and religiosity has relied exclusively on religious identity conflict and religious ethics as explanatory arguments (Steinmann 2023; Benoit 2021; Hillenbrand 2020; Pickel et al. 2020). The ambivalent role of religion stems from a conservative preference for a religiously homogeneous society on the one hand, while prosocial religious values support the acceptance of immigration on the other.

For an additional explanation, I propose to integrate religious contingency coping into the model of integrated threat theory (Stephan and Renfro 2003). Integrated threat theory postulates that perceptions of symbolic or instrumental threat between groups influence group identity and intergroup attitudes and behavior. Perceptions of threat have been shown to significantly reduce the acceptance of immigration (Benoit 2021; Brader et al. 2008). Individuals who are better able to cope with risk should be less averse to the possibility of economic distributional conflicts and cultural change caused by immigration.

I propose to consider religious contingency coping as an individual factor that should reduce threat perceptions and intergroup anxiety. A more optimistic attitude toward the contingency of life should reduce perceptions of the economic and cultural risks associated with immigration, thereby increasing acceptance of immigration:

H6

Anxiety about the future reduces acceptance of immigration.

The combination of H2 and H6 results in:

H7

Anxiety about the future partially mediates the positive relationship between liberal Christian religiosity and acceptance of immigration.

Furthermore, I consider generalized social trust as a catalyst for immigration acceptance. Generalized social trust involves the belief that others – strangers and those with whom one is not particularly familiar – are, on the whole, reliable and fair people (Uslaner 2018). Recent research suggests that when thinking about the generalized other, high trusters include immigrants in this group (van der Linden et al. 2017). In accordance with integrated threat theory, generalized trust should reduce intergroup threat perceptions and thereby influence attitudes toward immigration. Accordingly, generalized social trust has been shown to reduce immigration threat perceptions (Thomsen and Rafiqi 2020) and anti-immigrant attitudes (Pickel et al. 2020; Mitchell 2021; Fierro and Parella 2023).

H8

Generalized social trust promotes acceptance of immigration.

Liberal Christian religiosity is known to strengthen generalized social trust (Roleder 2024; Odermatt 2023, p. 224; Hsiung and Djupe 2019). Religious effects on the constitution of social trust operate through universalistic doctrines and identities, through social learning in religious communities, and through integrating effects of religious rituals (Traunmüller 2018, pp. 916–917; Charles et al. 2021).

Conversely, a conservative type of Christian religiosity tends to construct an exclusivist religious identity that draws a boundary with the outgroup. As a result, such an exclusivist type reduces generalized social trust in North America (Hsiung and Djupe 2019) and Europe (Odermatt 2023, p. 224; Roleder 2024).

H9

Nonexclusivist religiosity increases generalized social trust.

From the combination of H8 and H9 follows:

H10

Generalized social trust partially mediates the positive relationship between liberal Christian religiosity and acceptance of immigration.

Taken together, I expect that individuals with substantial liberal-Christian religiosity will have higher scores on future optimism, generalized social trust, and acceptance of immigration. This should mediate the positive correlation between liberal religiosity and political trust, and between liberal religiosity and a reluctance to embrace populism.

H11A

Acceptance of immigration acts as a mediator between liberal religiosity and institutional trust.

H11B

Acceptance of immigration acts as a mediator between liberal religiosity and populist attitudes.

3 Method

3.1 Sample

The current 6th Church Membership Survey (KMU) of the Protestant and the Roman Catholic Churches in Germany was conducted by the market research institute Forsa (Forsa Gesellschaft für Sozialforschung und statistische Analysen mbH) as a random sample via the Forsa Omninet Panel in the period from October 2022 to December 2022 (Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland 2023, pp. 8–11).Footnote 6 The cross-sectional sample, which was collected through an online survey, is representative of the entire population in Germany aged 14 and over living in private households. Of the total of 5282 respondents, the following analysis includes all unaffiliated (Konfessionslose), Protestants (EKD) and Roman Catholics (together 5108 cases). The Christian and non-Christian minority communities, in particular Muslims, are not included due to the small number of cases.

The data set specializing in religion offers the advantage of being able to address religiosity and church involvement in a multidimensional, multifaceted, and at the same time population-representative manner.

The descriptive statistics (Table 1) show that the largest group in the sample is made up of the unaffiliated (no church membership, no self-declared religious affiliation). The Protestant and Roman Catholic church members reflect the typical composition of state-sponsored churches, consisting of many non-religious or moderately religious church members and a small number of highly religious church members.

Table 1 Descriptive statistics of the weighted sample
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3.2 Measures

Religious contingency coping is indicated by agreement with the statement: “When suffering and misfortune hit me, religion offers me comfort.”Footnote 7 The term “comfort” represents an emic code for religious contingency coping in the face of negative circumstances.

Anxiety about the future was operationalized as agreement with the statement: “The way the future looks, it is hardly justifiable to bring children into the world.”Footnote 8 Although this item does not explicitly address the term anxiety as an emotion, the item captures a pessimistic and negative expectation (evaluation) of the future.

In Sect. 2.1, I introduced a cognitivist concept of emotions that emphasizes the evaluative nature of emotions. In this framework, a pessimistic evaluation of future prospects and a general attitude of anxiety come close together. The item oscillates in its valence between a negative evaluation of the future and a general sense of anxiety about the future.

Individual religiosity is measured in its multidimensionality of belief, communal and individual practice, experience, and religious socialization. The exclusivist type of Christian religion is indicated by agreement with the statement: “I can only accept my own religion or worldview as true.”

Trust in political institutions was operationalized with the common, seven-point item: “You will now be asked to name various public institutions and organizations. For each institution or organization, please indicate the level of trust you have in it: political parties.”

The populism score includes four common items used to measure populist attitudes (Akkerman et al. 2014).Footnote 9 The reliability of the scale is good (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.79).

Migration skepticism is indicated by agreement with the statement: “There are too many asylum seekers and refugees in Germany today, we shouldn’t take in so many more.”

The five-point item for generalized social trust follows its usual form: “In general, what do you think: Can you trust most people or can you not be careful enough when dealing with other people?”

The control variables were used with theoretical and methodological care (Cinelli et al. 2022). In addition to demographic characteristics, subjective economic deprivation and locus of control were included for their effect on future expectancy. Tradition orientation is related to immigration skepticism and populism. The analyses also include childhood attachment security, which is relevant for social trust.

The appendix lists all question items and the reliability of the scores.

3.3 Method of analysis

The statistical analysis is carried out in two steps. First, separate regression analyses examine the dependence of the assumed mediators on religiosity (4.1 to 4.4). Then, regression analyses on political trust and populism are constructed block by block (4.5 and 4.6). By constructing the linear regressions block by block, mediation effects can be identified.Footnote 10

No differences in religious effects were found between East and West Germany or between Protestant and Catholic Christians. Therefore, these distinctions will be omitted in the following. All analyses were checked for colinearity.

Regression coefficients (b) and fully standardized regression coefficients (B) are reported. Statistical analyses were performed using the regression module in SPSS 27.

4 Results

4.1 Predictors of religious contingency coping

The strong effects in the first regression analysis (Table 2) indicate that religious contingency coping is rooted in religious practices, religious beliefs and religious experiences, as predicted by H1 (“Religious beliefs, practices, and experiences positively predict religious coping with contingency.”). These three dimensions of religiosity interact in the processes of religious consolation (Krech 2021, pp. 94–98).

Table 2 Linear regression: religious contingency coping as a function of religious practice, belief, and experience
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In particular, the idea of God’s judgment seems to address the issue of justice. Respondents find comfort in both a Christian concept of God and a belief in an undefined form of transcendence. Religious experiences provide experiential evidence. Religious rituals (prayer, worship, candles, religious music) evoke religious experiences and serve to regulate emotions.

The constitution of religious coping with contingency thus points beyond the mere doctrinal and discursive aspects to the practical and experiential side of religiosity.

4.2 Predictors of future anxiety

The next regression analysis (Table 3) first shows the association of economic deprivation and an external locus of control with a negative future expectancy (Model I).

Table 3 Linear regression: future anxiety as a function of religious contingency coping and religious worship
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Model II confirms an additional influence of religiosity. Religious contingency coping somewhat reduces a sense of future anxiety.

Model III adds attendance of religious worship. The effect of worship suggests that, in addition to individual religiosity, religious community and rituals lead to a somewhat more optimistic attitude toward the future.

When entered last, the religious variables add somewhat to the explanatory power of the overall model, increasing from 11 to 15% of explained variance. For example, comparing the effect size of religious coping with the effect size of subjective economic deprivation in Model II, the religious effect is somewhat more pronounced than the economic effect.

This provides some support for H2 (“Religious contingency coping reduces anxiety about the future.”). Religious individuals, on average, show a slight reduction in future anxiety, and this correlation can be attributed to religious contingency coping in conjunction with religious rituals and religious community.

4.3 Predictors of generalized social trust

Table 4 reports the predictors of generalized social trust. Among the control variables, economic deprivation and tradition orientation are associated with less trust. On the psychological level, it is confirmed that social trust also depends on attachment security in childhood.

Table 4 Linear regression: generalized social trust as a function of religiosity
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Religious factors clearly contribute to the constitution of trust, as Model II shows. Consistent with the theory, the analysis makes clear that communal rituals, religious socialization, and religious anthropology all play a role. The additional effect of the subjective importance of religion may be directly related to the universalistic concepts of religious anthropology. The positive effects of socialization in church groups for children and adolescents, as well as religious education in schools, point to the relevance of social experiences and social learning processes in these contexts.

However, the well-known finding that exclusivist religiosity often limits the radius of trust to the religious in-group is equally clear. Exclusivist religiosity inhibits generalized social trust.

Thus, liberal religious groups on average have somewhat higher levels of generalized social trust than secular groups, confirming H9 (“Nonexclusivist religiosity increases generalized social trust.”).

4.4 Predictors of immigration skepticism

Table 5 lists the predictors of immigration skepticism. Regarding the control variables, immigration skepticism is strongly correlated with tradition orientation and somewhat correlated with economic deprivation. The effect of tradition orientation may indicate a symbolic conflict, while economic deprivation may indicate an instrumental conflict.

Table 5 Linear regression: immigration skepticism as a function of religiosity
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Model I confirms that individuals with a pronounced liberal religiosity are, on average, somewhat more open to immigration. This tendency is diminished for religious exclusivists. The latter finding is consistent with integrated threat theory, which points to a symbolic threat by immigration for exclusivist religious identities (see above 2.3.).

Model II adds factors that may mediate the religious effect. Consistent with our theoretical assumptions, prosociality and generalized social trust significantly increase the acceptance of migration. H8 is confirmed (“Generalized social trust promotes acceptance of immigration.”). In contrast, anxiety about the future somewhat reduces the acceptance of immigration, providing some evidence for H6 (“Anxiety about the future reduces acceptance of immigration.”). The role of future anxiety can be interpreted in the sense that lower anxiety reduces threat perceptions associated with immigration, which strengthens acceptance of immigration (see above 2.3.).

It has already been confirmed that future anxiety and generalized social trust are partly influenced by religiosity (see above 4.2. and 4.3.). In addition, liberal religious groups on average show more prosocial attitudes toward marginalized social groups, slightly more so among Protestants than among Catholics.Footnote 11

Once future anxiety, prosociality, and generalized social trust are included in the model, the effect of religiosity weakens. This suggests that the significance of religiosity is mediated by these factors, as predicted by H7 (“Anxiety about the future partially mediates the positive relationship between liberal Christian religiosity and acceptance of immigration.”) and H10 (“Generalized social trust partially mediates the positive relationship between liberal Christian religiosity and acceptance of immigration.”), with the relationships being stronger for generalized social trust than for future anxiety.Footnote 12

4.5 Trust in democratic institutions

Table 6 presents a stepwise regression of trust in political parties.

Table 6 Stepwise linear regression of trust in political parties
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Model I begins with a positive association between worship attendance and political trust. This is consistent with previous findings (see above 1.).

Model II suggests that the positive effect of religiosity is partly due to religious coping.

In Modell III, future anxiety lowers institutional trust, as predicted by H3 (“Anxiety about the future reduces trust in political institutions.”). When future anxiety is added, the direct effects of religious worship and religious coping are somewhat attenuated. This suggests a mediating effect of anxiety between religiosity and trust in political institutions, providing some support for H5A (“Religiously reduced anxiety about the future acts as a mediator between religiosity and trust in political institutions.”).

Model IV adds generalized social trust and immigration skepticism. Consistent with previous findings (see 2.3. above), immigration skepticism significantly increases the odds of disapproval of political institutions.

Adding generalized social trust and immigration skepticism further reduces the effect size of worship attendance. The final step provides some evidence for H11A (“Acceptance of immigration acts as a mediator between liberal religiosity and institutional trust.”). By increasing generalized social trust and acceptance of immigration, liberal Christian religiosity contributes somewhat to the acceptance of democratic institutions.Footnote 13

4.6 Populist attitudes

Table 7 presents a stepwise regression of populist attitudes.

Table 7 Stepwise linear regression of populist attitudes
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The basic model starts with control variables that plausibly do not mediate the effects of religion (Model I).

The addition of religious variables (Model II) leads to a statistical advance in explanatory power (corrected R2 from 0.16 to 0.21). This indicates some relevance of religiosity for affinity or inhibition towards populist attitudes. This step confirms the known ambivalences of religion (see 1. above). While parareligious and exclusivist ideas are positively correlated with populism, the majority type of liberal Christian religiosity shows some inhibition towards populism. In terms of effect sizes, church attendance slightly exceeds economic deprivation (when religious coping is left out).

Model III introduces the presumed mediators of religion, namely anxiety about the future and immigration skepticism. Anxiety about the future positively predicts populist attitudes to a considerable extent, confirming H4 (“Anxiety about the future promotes populist attitudes.”). Plausibly, this general anxiety about the future, which suggests a sense of crisis, threat to status or identity, seems to make people susceptible to the appeal of populism and its rhetoric of social decay. The effect of immigration skepticism is even stronger, highlighting immigration as the most salient political issue in relation to populism.

In Model III, the direct effects of religion are significantly reduced compared to Model II. This suggests that anxiety about the future, skepticism about immigration, and social trust mediate the relationship between religiosity and populism. This finally confirms H5B (“Religiously reduced anxiety about the future acts as a mediator between religiosity and populist attitudes.”) and H11B (“Acceptance of immigration acts as a mediator between liberal religiosity and populist attitudes.”). The liberal type of Christian religiosity is plausibly somewhat less susceptible to populist attitudes because it is more optimistic about the contingent future, more socially trusting, and more accepting of immigration.

At the same time, our analysis traces the more pronounced affinity of the exclusivist type of Christian religiosity to populism to inhibited generalized social trust and more skepticism about immigration. For, the comparison of Model II with Model III also suggests a mediation of religious exclusivism through social trust and immigration skepticism.

5 Summary of results

In principle, the analyses confirm three mediators that operate between liberal Christian religiosity, political trust and populist attitudes: future optimism through religious contingency coping, generalized social trust, and acceptance of immigration.

I find some empirical evidence for the hypothesis that religious contingency coping strengthens future optimism and thus inhibits the anxiety that affects institutional trust and populism. On the one hand, the evidence could be stronger overall. On the other hand, the religious effect on future anxiety is still slightly stronger than the economic effect in the model (see 4.2. above).

More pronounced is the religious boost to generalized social trust, which in turn strengthens institutional trust and restraint toward populism, mediated mainly through greater acceptance of immigration.

Regarding the multidimensionality of religion, my analyses confirm an indirect political significance of seemingly apolitical aspects of religion. Not only religious doctrines and discourses, but also certain religious practices, experiences and community settings can develop indirect political functions. Religious optimism about the contingent future is rooted in religious rituals and experiences as practices of coping with contingency. Generalized social trust arises not only from an abstract universalistic religious anthropology, but more concretely from social learning processes in religious education and religious community, as well as from experiences of social integration in rituals.

The ambivalence of religion was confirmed with regard to religious exclusivism, which tends to inhibit generalized social trust and acceptance of immigration and thus correlates somewhat with populist attitudes. In Germany, the exclusivist type of Christian religiosity represents a minority. 8.5% of Roman Catholic and Protestant church members agree with the exclusivism item.Footnote 14 Notably, exclusivism is not a defining characteristic of intensive religiosity in Germany. The Pearson correlation between church attendance and exclusivism is only r = 0.15.

6 Discussion

The contribution of this study to the discussion of the relationship between religiosity and acceptance of democracy is twofold.

First, the study introduced clearly operationalized mediators that operate between Christian religiosity and its political consequences (contingency coping, generalized social trust, acceptance of immigration). In this way, the study helped to empirically substantiate the theoretical arguments for explaining the relationship. The question of why religiosity matters for acceptance of democracy can now be better understood at the empirical level.

Second, the idea of a political function of religious contingency coping raises a perspective that has received little attention yet. On a theoretical level, it is intuitive to relate religious contingency coping to the discussion of political crisis, anxiety, and resilience. On an empirical level, the analyses provide some evidence that religious contingency coping contributes somewhat to optimism about the future, which in turn carries political consequences.

This study has a methodological limitation at the empirical level. It would be desirable to operationalize religious consolation as well as political crisis sentiments and anxieties as empirical variables in a clearer and more differentiated way. The questionnaire items available here merely represent limited approximations of the relevant concepts.

Nonetheless, the idea that religious contingency coping can serve to buffer political stress, and, in this regard, carry some political significance, seems generalizable. This follows from the notion that contingency coping is a universal function of religion (Pollack 2018; Krech 2021). At the same time, we can expect the effect of religious stress reduction to be easily overridden by religious conflict. As soon as religiosity itself becomes a factor of political stress and anxiety, especially as a “threatened” religious identity, this contradicts religious stress buffering. The extent to which positive religious coping is overwhelmed by these other factors seems to vary greatly from context to context.

According to my argument, religious contingency coping can reduce the perception of crisis, thereby making adherence to the existing political order more likely and weakening support for extreme political measures and actors. Religious contingency coping should thus support a tendency toward the political center.

A functioning democratic culture requires not only resilient but also politicized citizens. Therefore, it matters whether religious coping with contingency is combined with a religious interpretation of the world that is oriented toward active political participation. Only in this combination can religiosity promote politically resilient and at the same time politicized citizens and thus fit the democratic model. Otherwise, there is a danger of political passivity that is religiously pacified.

In its majority form, Christian religiosity in Germany promotes active social and political participation in addition to its resilience function.Footnote 15 In this combination, therefore, the majority type of liberal Christian religiosity contributes somewhat to democratic culture, while the ambivalence of religious exclusivism and other related types remains.

With respect to research on the micro-constitution of democratic attitudes, my argument invites greater attention to non-political resources for coping with political stressors. Religious coping, on which I have focused here, should be only one coping resource among others. Other non-political resources can be expected to serve as equivalent means of coping with political stressors. For an example, research on coping with political violence points to a variety of resources, including informal support networks, institutional support, and cultural meaning-making (Sousa et al. 2013).