This article examines politicized religion on institutional grounds, arguing that religious violence is both a corollary of attempted institutional transformation and, more specifically, of the institutional logic of religion itself. The institutionalism that this article proposes is a cultural sociological project; it seeks to encompass, not displace, prior institutional constitutions. The article contends that institutions are constituted by orderings of means-ends couplets, regimes of practice, the so-called “institutional logics.” It first considers religious violence as a political strategy and as a religious sentiment before discussing the institutional form of religious nationalism. It then explores institutional logic in relation to social movements, along with the political constitution of religious violence and the religious constitution of political violence. It also assesses the intersections of sex, violence, and divinity and concludes by explaining how institutional logic can help us better understand the violence of politicized religion.