This paper studies the relationship between economic prosperity and religion through the lens of social norms. In a social equilibrium framework, where a society is one realization of many possible equilibria, we model how the Albanian government increased female participation in education and employment by changing the social equilibrium through credibly committing to communist ideals. This shift was accomplished by declaring Albania the First Atheist country in the world in 1967 and the de-sanctification of its religious buildings, excluding those deemed national cultural monuments 20 years prior. Exploiting this unique natural experiment, we use this variation in spared buildings to measure the credibility of the government’s commitment to female emancipation in each municipality. In doing so, our main focus is on citizens’ faith in the state’s commitment, rather than their faith in religion. Using forty years of hand-transcribed administrative data, we show that in the decades following the reform, municipalities in which all religious buildings were de-sanctified experienced higher growth in female schooling, labor market participation, and production. Supplementary analysis, exploiting the Demographic and Health Survey data on social norms, shows that the reform has had lasting improvement of female empowerment. We argue that the Albanian government changed social norms through the banning of religion to achieve their policy goals.