A Religious Fruitcake

As a Catholic, I was struck by a recent comment on an email list I subscribe to. The author pointed out the high level of corruption in the Philippines, and suggested this was because it was a Catholic country. Then he cited the Biblical injunction “By their fruits ye shall know them,” saying this was a proof of the falsehood of Catholicism.

I'm afraid the worst of it was that it struck me as fair comment. Yes, indeed, that is the standard by which we are to judge a false prophet, as Christians.
Still—does “fruits” mean only moral behaviour in a negative sense, not doing wrong? It seems not, since elsewhere in the Bible, the “fruits of the spirit” are described: Galatians 5:22-23; “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.” This goes beyond the negative concept of simply not cheating anyone; and, in fact, one has the vague impression that Filipinos do rather well on love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, faith, and meekness on the whole. Rather better than the average Canadian.

Then there are the “Gifts of the spirit,” which are also represented as seals of one's religious bona fides, and may be referred to here. These are even broader: healing, prophesy, teaching, exhortation, leadership, speaking in tongues, the working of miracles, and so forth. Then there are other things that might seem “fruits of the spirit” in a colloquial sense: works of art, philosophies, scientific and geographical discoveries, technologies...

But let's, for the sake of argument, make an attempt to measure moral behaviour by religion, and see what we come up with.

First stop: Transparency International, which keeps a tally of perceptions of corruption by country, by survey of international businessmen.

Here's their current list of ten most corrupt, with largest religious affiliation as determined by the CIA World Fact Book:

D. R. Congo - Catholic 50%
Equatorial Guinea – Catholic
Chad – Muslim 53.1%
Guinea – Muslim 85%
Sudan- Muslim
Afghanistan - Muslim
Haiti- Catholic
Iraq - Muslim
Myanmar - Buddhist
Somalia – Muslim

But that's only half the story. We need a balance; otherwise a religion might be penalized purely for being more common. Here, as a check, are the least corrupt ten:

Denmark - Protestant
New Zealand – Protestant (40%)
Sweden – Protestant
Singapore – Buddhist (42.5%)
Finland – Protestant
Switzerland – Catholic (42%)
Iceland – Protestant
Netherlands – Catholic (30%)
Australia – mixed Christian (Catholic 26.4%, Anglican 20.5%, other Christian 20.5%)

Awarding one point for each appearance on the top ten, subtracting one point for each appearance in the bottom ten, with half points to both Catholic and Protestant for Australia (Anglicans are never sure which they are):

Overall ranking of religions from most to least corrupt:

Muslim: 6 – 0 = 6
Catholic: 3 – 2.5 = 0.5
Buddhist: 1-1 = 0
Protestant: 0 – 5.5 = - 5.5

Credit where credit is due: a big win for Protestantism. And a big loss for Islam. The influence of either Catholicism or Buddhism seems just about a wash, in terms of the common good.

But wait. We are not done. “Corruption” is not the only form of misbehaviour, even in strictly social terms. To get a full picture, we also have to factor in the crime in the streets.

I can find no set of lowest figures. But Nationmaster has a list of the highest crime rates per capita:

Dominica – Catholic 61.4%
New Zealand – Protestant
Finland – Protestant
Denmark – Protestant
Chile – Catholic
United Kingdom – mixed Christian
Montserrat – mixed Christian
United States – Protestant (51.3%)
Netherlands – Catholic
South Africa – Protestant

Now we need somehow to balance this with a lowest ten, again to prevent bias against more common religions.

It is less than a perfect match, but I find a decent list for robberies per capita. In the lower reaches of the eighty-some countries covered are:

Yemen – Muslim
Oman- Muslim
Armenia – Orthodox Christian
Dominica – Catholic
Seychelles – Catholic
Maldives - Muslim
Cyprus – Orthodox Christian
Iceland – Protestant
Burma - Buddhist
Qatar – Muslim

Compiling these stats on the same basis, raking religions from most to least felonious:

Protestantism: 5
Catholicism: 2
Buddhism: -1
Orthodox: -2
Islam: -4

That doesn't help the Protestant record. Interestingly, some of the same countries with lowest corruption have the highest crime rates; there seems to be a definite inverse relation here.

Adding both together: highest numbers being rottenest “fruits”:

Catholicism: 2.5
Islam: 2
Protestantism: -0.5
Buddhism: -1
Orthodox: -2

I guess we should probably all become Eastern Orthodox; or if you lump all Christians together, Buddhist.

But it is at least as striking that all religions seem to be all over the map. The same religion seems capable of producing the most corrupt or the most honest society, the most crime-ridden, or the safest.

Moral of the story is that there is no moral of the story. Go and sin no more.