<p>Previous research on cross-country variation in regulation of religion has delivered important theoretical and empirical insights regarding the correlates of regulation. Yet, the possibility that the relationship between regulation and its correlates is characterized by asymmetrical causality, conjunctural causality or equifinality remains unexplored in the quantitative studies on the topic. To account for the possibility of complex causality, the current study uses fuzzy-set QCA to explore the pathways to low and high levels of government regulation of and restrictions on majority religion or all religions in 155 countries in 2014. The focus is on four contextual conditions (historical legacies, religious demography, economic wealth, political institutions) and two types of actors (secular and religious), which in previous research on regulation of religion have been identified as important correlates of regulation.</p><p>The results show that there are several different pathways to both low and high levels of government restrictions. These pathways are a&#xa0;combination of different conditions (none of the six conditions alone are necessary or sufficient to explain the high or low levels of restrictions). Moreover, the paths to low and high levels of restrictions are not merely mirror images of each other. For example, high levels of GDP/capita is a&#xa0;condition in some pathways to both high and low levels of restrictions. Thus, our findings suggest that future research on regulation of religion should focus more on understanding how the configuration of different conditions creates various pathways to high and low levels of regulation.</p>