In this paper, I argue that religion has become a persistent and strategically significant dimension of contemporary great-power competition. Drawing on the concept of religious soft power, I examine how major actors—especially Russia, China, India, and the member-states of the Gulf Cooperation Council—are integrating religious narratives, institutions, and networks into their foreign-policy toolkits. The article shows that religion is no longer a "nice to have" cultural overlay in diplomacy; rather, it is woven into how states project influence, respond to rival power initiatives, and mobilize support abroad. I emphasise three mechanisms through which religion enters great-power rivalry: (1) the promotion of national religious-identity narratives to bolster reputational standing and bloc solidarity; (2) the leveraging of transnational faith networks as channels for influence and for circumventing more traditional diplomatic constraints; and (3) the use of faith-aligned institutional and legal instruments to shape the international order and normative terrain in ways favourable to a given power. The analysis illustrates that these mechanisms are flexible—they appear in different combinations depending on context—but share a logic of "religious instrumentality" in strategic statecraft. The concluding section reflects on the implications: the growing religious dimension complicates conventional frameworks of power politics, demands more attention to faith-based actors and networks in strategic analysis, and poses challenges for policymakers accustomed to secular models of competition. The article calls for renewed research agendas that bring religion into the mainstream of IR theory on great-power rivalry, rather than treating it as a marginal or epiphenomenal factor.