I haven’t read William Temple’s ‘Christianity and Social Order’ but there are excerpts from it in another book I am reading. Some of his thoughts caught my attention.

Firstly he outlines what he thinks should be the Church’s impact on society. First, the Church should make its principles known. Secondly, in relation to society the Church should enable those who are part of it to reshape the society around them according to those principles but doing so in a way that is well aware of the limitations. He doesn’t state it but I would personally say that this should be a natural outcome of the Church’s most natural work – the propulsion of the individual towards God. This, naturally, reshapes the individual. The outcome of that is an individual who naturally reshapes society. Temple then goes on:

If Christianity is true at all, it is a truth of universal application; all things should be done in the Christian spirit and in accordance with Christian principles.
“Then,” say those who want reform, “produce your Christian solution for unemployment.” But there neither is nor could be such a thing. The Christian faith does not by itself enable its members to see how a vast number of people within an intricate economic system will be affected by a particular economic or political idea.
“In that case,” say those who want to uphold the status quo, “keep off the turf! By your own confession you are out of place here.” Here the Church must reply, “No! I cannot tell you what is the remedy. But I can tell you that a society with a chronic unemployment is a diseased society. If you are not doing all that you can to find the remedy, you are guilty before God.”
The Church is likely to be attacked from both sides if it does its duty. It will be told that it has become “political” when in fact it has merely stated its principles and pointed out when they have been breached. The Church will be told by advocates of particular policies that it is futile because it does not support theirs. If the Church is faithful to its commission, it will ignore both sets of complaints and continue as far as it can to influence all citizens and permeate all parties.

This also caught my attention

Political issues are often concerned with people as they are, not with people as they ought to be. Part of the task of the Church is to help people to order their lives in order to lead them to what they ought to be. Assuming they are already as they ought to be always leads to disaster.
It is not my belief that people are utterly bad, or even that they are more bad than good. What I am contending here is that we are not wholly good, and that even our goodness is infected with self-centeredness. For this reason, we are exposed to temptation as far as we are able to obtain power.
The Church’s belief in Original Sin should make us intensely realistic and should free us from trying to create a Utopia. For there is no such thing as a Christian social ideal to which we should try to conform the society we are in as closely as possible. After all, no one wants to live in the “ideal society” as depicted by anyone.
…
Although Christianity supplies no ideal, it does supply something of far more value, namely, principles on which we can begin to act in every possible situation.

He then turns his attention to the underlying principles mentioned. Allow me to summarise them:

1. All Christian thinking begins with God and not with humanity. God is the creator and the world only exists because of God’s will. God is impelled to make the world because of his love. In creating humanity there was risk that we would take the self-centered approach to life and become hardened in our selfishness, turning our backs on life as it ought to be within His creation. To win us out of this he entered into our existence as one of us and is drawing us to himself by the love shown.
2. We are made in the image of God and that image has been stamped on an animal nature. There is a constant tension between these two. We are children of God, the object of his love, capable of communion with him and destined for eternal fellowship with him. Our true value is not derived from ourselves, but from what we are worth to God, and therefore our worth is bestowed upon us by the utterly gratuitous love he has for us. Our lives should be ordered and conducted with this dignity in view.
3. Because of this value, dignity and worth that is derived from God “the State must not treat us as only having value in so far as we serve its end as totalitarian States do.” The State exists for us, not us for it. But we must not, therefore, conduct our lives as if we, ourselves, are the center of our own value. “We are not our own ends. Our value is our worth to God, and our end is to ‘glorify God and enjoy him forever.'”
4. We are self-centered, but this is not the whole truth of our nature. Due to the divine nature that we carry within us, though it is defaced, we have the capacity for holiness and love. This can also be the source of our perversities. We are capable of response to the Divine Image “in its perfection” and therefore we may be transformed into the image of Christ himself – the presence of God.

That is our destiny. And our social life, so far as it is deliberately planned, should be ordered with that destiny in view. We must be treated as we actually are, but always with a view to what in God’s purposes we are destined to become.