Moral Man and Immoral Society - Reinhold Niebuhr - Chapter 3

Chapter 3 - Religious Resources

• Love for neighbour above oneself is ethically purer than a rational response.
• Our obligation to love, honour and obey any being is in direct proportion to it's loveliness, honourableness and authority.
• Religion and morality are separated by contrition (Luther/Barth) or reverence (pantheism)   Augustine
• Thomas Aquinas has religious "sin" without destroying moral connotation.
• Usually the individual is saved by grace and society is consigned to the devil.
• All men can not be expected to become spiritual any more than they can all be expected to become rational.

My thoughts:  Basically,  religion has ( and always had ) a lot to say about the social issues of justice and equality.  Only relatively recently is it even an option to exclude religious ideas from moral social issues and think about what it might have to offer.  That being said, there are extensive resources in this area since religion tends to regard itself as the authority on the subject of morality. The only question is will they play nice together; more on that later.