While it is true that knowledge was being advanced in certain parts of the world at a swifter rate than in Western Europe, overall Christianity came with a handicap. All the research it funded and promoted was capped by the need to keep God above all. It was like running a race with lead shoes down a straight and narrow road.

But you are right, there is more to it than that. Christianity somehow contributed to world progress, in its own way.

One can talk of the different schools of Christianity, for example. Western Christianity was steeped in war and darkness for many centuries. Eastern Christianity i.e. the Eastern Roman Empire i.e. Byzantium was more stable and integrated, safeguarding much of the ancient Greco-Roman knowledge.

The Renaissance reveals all the above. The spike in knowledge and research it produced is indicative of the potential of thought derived from rational rather than theistic thinking. It reveals the handicap Christianity had imposed on the world in terms of philosophical prowess and scientific discovery, while at the same time pointing out how Eastern Christianity was far more versed in science and philosophy than Western Christianity. One of the watershed events for the Renaissance was, after all, the fall of Constantinople, from where scholars emigrated to the West, mostly Italy. It also marked the rise of Russia as a strong nation, circa the end of the 15th century, for some chose to go there instead of Italy.