Aloysius Pieres, says that: “Every religion, Christianity included, is at once a sign and a countersign of the kingdom of God; that the revolutionary impetus launching a religion into existence is both fettered and fostered by the need for an ideological formulation; that its institutionalisation both constrains and conserves its liberative force; that religion, therefore, is a potential means of either enslavement or emancipation.“

Many studies in psychology and sociology exemplify the point that Pieres is trying to make. They prove that while some religious people are actually often less humanitarian than their non-religious neighbours, becuse of their religion, some religious people are actually often more humanitarian than their non-religious neighbours, because of their religion.

Peter Glew‑Crouch, has shown in a recent study, that the relationship between religious beliefs and humanitarian behaviour is not a simple linear one, but a more complicated curvilinear one, which, no doubt when drawn, would take the form of a bell graph. His study demonstrates that people who don’t get into the ideology of an institutionalised religion are less likely to be prejudiced, for example, than those who do. But, his study also demonstrates, that people who get beyond the ideology of an institutionalised religion, are less likely to be prejudiced than either of their religious, or their non-religious, neighbours.

A review of the contemporary research on “voluntarism”, by David Gerard, demonstrates that the most significant difference between those who are prepared to give them selves, freely, to work with others in the community, and those who aren’t, is a degree of religious devotion to the Other that transcends their egocentricity. 

A review of the contemporary research on “altruism”, by Craig Seaton, demonstrates that the most significant difference between those who are prepared to give their lives, sacrificially, to save the lives of others in the community, and those who aren’t, is a degree of religious devotion to the Other that trancends their ethnocentricity. 

Scott Peck suggests that there are four distinct stages of growth in religion. The first stage is antisocial “confusion”. The second stage is institutional “conformity”. The third stage is individual “nonconformity”. And the fourth stage is communal “spirituality”. For people who have been “confused”, no doubt the clarity of religious “conformity”, of one kind or another, can be quite helpful. But if people do not grow beyond acceptance of “conformity”, to a respect for “nonconformity”, they can get stuck at a stage of religious development, where they get so locked into their dogma, that they simply can’t relate to an Other, and community development becomes a sheer impossibility. However, if people grow towards a stage of “spirituality”, where they acquire the maturity to be able to facilitate unity and diversity with an Other, regardless of dogma, religion can play a very creative role in community development.

According to a survey conducted by S.J.Samartha, this type of spirituality is actually playing a vital part in much of the community development taking place in many of the new movements happening around the world today. “One emphasis, in all new movements,” Samartha says,”is a more satisfying human life here and now. Another emphasis is the search for new forms of community, partly as a protest against traditional, petrified forms of community that stifled freedom, and partly because of the pressures of modern life that demand new groupings and new relationships.”

“Seeking renewal,” Samartha says, “movements of innovation go back to the spiritual core…back to their original resources…to discover a framework of meaning in which the person has a vocation to discover community….The true role of religion is to enable people to transcend the dominant ideologies of the day, and to encourage the people, so empowered, to criticise the status quo, catalyse change in the system, and create communities in which they can overcome the evil with good.”

Dave Andrews Building A Better World p 341-344