Content of religion

From review of Keith Thomas' The Ends of Life: Roads to Fulfilment in Early Modern England in the LRB of 23.7.09 by Eamon Duffy:

"The sterner kinds of Christian preacher and ascetic had indeed a perennial tendency to present Christianity as largely otherworldly, to see this world as nothing but a vale of tears. But that has never been the whole content of Christianity, or indeed of any other religion. For most of its adherents, most of the time, Christianity has been just as importantly a 'road to fulfilment', a motive for hopefulness about the world, and a call to the love of God and neighbour."