Lower Than the Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity - Hardcover

by Diarmaid MacCulloch (Author)

"An epic tale, and MacCulloch is an undaunted guide."--New York Review of Books

A groundbreaking history of sexual emotion, sexual activity, gender relations, marriage and the family--and how Christianity has interacted with this panorama of human concerns

Few matters produce more public interest and public anxiety than sex and religion. Much of the political contention and division in societies across the world centres on sexual topics, and one-third of the global population is Christian in background or outlook. The issue goes to the heart of present-day religion.

This book seeks to calm fears and encourage understanding through telling a three-thousand-year-long tale of Christians encountering sex, gender, and the family. The message of Lower than the Angels is simple, necessary and timely: to pay attention to the complexity and contradictions in the history of Christianity. The reader can decide from the story told here whether there is a single Christian theology of sex, or many contending voices in a symphony that is not at all complete. Oxford's Emeritus Professor of the History of the Church introduces an epic of ordinary and extraordinary Christians trying to make sense of themselves and of humanity's deepest desires, fears and hopes.

Author Biography

Diarmaid MacCulloch is a fellow of both St Cross College and Campion Hall, Oxford, and emeritus professor of the history of the church at Oxford University. His books include Thomas Cranmer: A Life, which won the Whitbread Biography Prize, the James Tait Black Prize, and the Duff Cooper Prize and Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years, a New York Times bestseller that won the Cundill Prize in History. He has presented many highly celebrated documentaries for television and radio, and was knighted in 2012 for his services to scholarship. He is an ordained deacon of the Church of England. He lives in Oxford, England.