There exists today a widespread presumption that all religions must be regarded as of equal worth, and in any event are not to be the object of comparative value judgments. That presumption – let's label it religious relativism, a corollary of cultural relativism – is the dominant one in the West, and surely in our universities. However, when it comes to the relationship between religion and human progress, I find compelling evidence that some religions do better than others in promoting the goals of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights: democratic politics, social justice, and prosperity.

Figure 2.1 at the appendix of this chapter is the summary of an idealized typology of 25 cultural factors that are viewed very differently in cultures prone to progress and those that resist it. As you will appreciate, religious doctrine and practice influence virtually all of these 25 factors.

As an example of a religion that is highly resistant to progress, consider Voodoo, the dominant religion of Haiti and a surrogate for the many traditional religions of Africa, the birthplace of Voodoo. Haiti is by far the poorest, least literate, most misgoverned country in the Western Hemisphere. Voodoo is a religion of sorcery in which hundreds of spirits, very human and capricious, control human destinies. The only way to gain leverage over what happens in one's life is to propitiate the spirits through the ceremonial intervention of the Voodoo priests and priestesses.