Before the temptation to "reduce Christianity to a mere human skill” which replaces "believing with doing" and has brought in “a gradual laicisation of salvation”, Benedict XVI stressed that the “salvation” brought by Christ "is full" and "it is just to such a full salvation that Lent is meant to guide us”. While recalling the mistakes "made in the course of history by many who said they were the disciples of Jesus and who, “before the imminence of serious problems, often thought they had to improve the earth first, before they could think of heaven”, the Pope commented that "for someone this resulted in turning Christianity into self-righteousness, in the replacement of believing with doing". One should not, therefore, be tempted to "reduce Christianity to a merely human skill, almost a science of good life”. Quoting John Paul II, he added, "in a deeply laicised world, salvation has gradually been laicised too, so one fights for man but for a halved man". Benedict XVI insists on the "fullness” of the salvation to which "Lent is meat to guide us with a view to the victory of Christ over every evil that oppresses man “.
