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I think Rawls may have an answer to your last question about why God is not mentioned. Remember what he is trying to do -- especially in his later work. He believes that modern democratic societies will inevitably divide into different groups of people with different world views. Rawls calls these world views "comprehensive doctrines."

What he's trying to do is find a core of principles that all of the people who profess "reasonable conprehensive doctrines" can agree to. He wants something that Christians and Jews and Muslims and atheists and agnostics can all accept. He can't base his principles on God because not everyone believes in God. He can't base them on the New Testament because not everyone accepts the authority of the New Testament. He hopes that he can find principles that all of the different groups can accept (even if they accept them for different reasons).

The picture here is that we as a society can come together on some basic principles of justice while continuing to differ in our comprehensive doctrines. No doctrine is presumed to be true and no doctrine is used as the basis of the principles of justice.

I think its a very bold idea; although, to be honest, I'm not at all sure that Rawls has pulled it off.