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Over the weekend commentators and politicians were preoccupied with one question: How could young Britons be attracted to a cause that commits acts of such unspeakable barbarism as the beheading of an innocent man? It seems incomprehensible. More so when those who are attracted include at least some who are well-educated, thoughtful and principled. Unless we can make some sense of how this happens, we are unlikely to figure out how to stop it.

The same question is being asked across Europe. However, they'll recall that they've been here before in Germany in the 1970s – though the violence then was politically rather than religiously inspired. But the left-wing group known as the Red Army Faction also had the sympathy of many young people despite its kidnappings and killings. It tapped into a range of discontents and played on young people's dreams of a better world. And that may give us the first clue in our attempt to make sense of things.

The second may lie in this. What I find most striking about this new religious mood is its anger and its impatience – and the two are connected. It reminds me of an often overlooked incident in the Christian gospels – something that happens when Jesus is on the road. On one occasion he sends messengers to the village ahead to get things ready. But the villagers are Samaritans and when they realise he's on his way to Jerusalem – whose temple they don't recognise – they refuse to receive him. The disciples are so angry they want to bring down fire from heaven to incinerate the entire village. Jesus rebukes them.

It's that same phenomenon: everyone must fall in with the disciples desires and do so now, and when they don't they become very angry. Those who are drawn towards religious militancy are acting in a similar fashion. It comes from a deep frustration in the face of other people's perceived recalcitrance.

The point is that the more intense your commitment to what you see as a noble ideal the more frustrating, disappointing and even incomprehensible it seems when others don't immediately share your goals. Then the anger rises. And what is thought to be the nobility of the ultimate goal is used to justify any attempt to overcome the stubbornness of the unconvinced, however cruel or grotesque. At that point theology is being used to suppress morality and the human sympathy and fellow-feeling that accompanies it.

So, if theology is part of the problem it has to be part of the solution. Its role will be to enable idealistic, angry and impatient people see that faith is not something to be used to justify your actions and activities, but to interrogate them, to ask searching questions about your motives and your methods. And by that test projects of religious terrorism will stand condemned.

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