View source for Codex of Outer Realms (3.5e Sourcebook)/Introduction

==Celestials== 
The Celestial races, such as angels, archons, eladrin and guardinals, are born from goodness, and thus try to spread goodness. in the mortal plane, this is pretty much just sponsoring the churches of good faiths, helping to set up orphanages, healing the sick, community aid programs, etc... While on the planes, they take a much more active approach. This includes trying to forge alliances and using diplomacy to spread their ideals, spreading wisdom and education, sustainable inter-planar commerce, or even just spreading hope to those in tough times.

What this means is that angels do more than fight evil/look pretty. They actually venture out to make the world a better place, even though that is generally a lot more boring than you'd expect. I mean seriously, you cant just go around slaughtering every bad guy you see and assume things automatically fix themselves, just look at any time someone tried to depose a dictator without having any form of backup structure. You end up with a power vacuum filled by terrorist and warlords. 

Celestials aren't there just to stab the demon lord and pose for a photo shoot. They are there so those living under the evil empire or those terrorised by raving war bands can look forward to a future where they can live a good life, where they and their families don't have to worry about some dragon coming in to eat their daughters and can just focus on living their lives to the fullest.