Lower than the Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity

by Diarmaid MacCulloch

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781984878670
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	04/15/2025
Pages:	688
Sales rank:	186,146
Product dimensions:	6.36(w) x 9.54(h) x 2.08(d)

About the Author

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.

Editorial Reviews

★ 02/24/2025

Historian MacCulloch (Christianity) notes in this sweeping study of Christian sexuality that the teachings of Jesus contain numerous heterodox statements regarding sex and gender. These include his famous call for mercy toward women adulterers, but also a less well-known observation concerning eunuchs—that some had “been so from birth” and some had “made themselves for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.” These words, a reference to the biblical notion that angels are “genderless beings in heaven,” inspired some early Christian men to “imitate angels... by surgically dispensing with their genitals.” Once Christianity became a state religion, church administrators attempted to steer such “countercultural” depictions of angels as “positioned between gender identities” in a more conservative direction by associating them with the gendered notions of virginity in women and celibacy in men. But the concept retained a radical edge—MacCulloch notes that by the 12th century the practice of chastity had become so extreme that the church had to clarify it “would expect marriages to produce children,” a claim so controversial that some medieval theologians refused to “admit” it. As Christianity became “a world religion,” it grew more authoritarian and less intimate, McCulloch concludes, with radical expressions of sexuality happening despite the church, instead of within it. Both scholarly rigorous and amiably open to the variations of human experience, this enthralls. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

A rich, panoramic view of the changing understanding of sex, gender, celibacy, and marriage through Christian history… MacCulloch is wonderfully even-handed and reliable as a guide, even when the topics explored are controversial… Timely, enjoyable, and thoroughly worthwhile.”—Library Journal, starred review

“Clear... sprightly... [an] extraordinary, definitive text, a study of attitudes towards sexuality and religion that encompasses three millennia.” —Booklist, starred review

“Both scholarly rigorous and amiably open to the variations of human experience, this enthralls.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Well written and thoroughly researched, this comprehensive volume unveils a fascinating history.”—Kirkus Reviews

“A comprehensive and richly entertaining history of the ways in which, for 3,000 years, the church has tied itself in knots over sex… MacCulloch is the best kind of scholar.”—The Observer (UK)

“Compelling and encyclopedic… MacCulloch is an ideal guide in tracing this story. He writes, as always, with such liveliness and energy.”—The Telegraph (UK)

"Magisterial ... In Lower than the Angels, Diarmaid MacCulloch offers a history of sex and Christianity that is both confronting and reassuring in its detail and complexity, taking biblical scholarship and theological development seriously at the same time as insisting on the historian’s independence. A thrilling read."—Financial Times

From the Publisher

★ 02/14/2025

This is a rich, panoramic view of the changing understanding of sex, gender, celibacy, and marriage through Christian history, crafted by careful attention to the evocative stories, telling events, and nuanced debates that make up that history. To attempt a sweeping book of this sort is an ambitious goal, but MacCulloch (emeritus, history of the Church, Oxford Univ.; Thomas Cromwell: A Life) dazzles in the depth of his knowledge of sources, clarity of his prose, carefully framed descriptions, and the playful wit that keeps the text from becoming dry or self-important. The end product is a work that reads as a fully engrossing and thorough summary of over 2,000 years of history while continuously drawing readers' attention to women's involvement in the Church, attitudes toward homosexuality, shifting marriage rituals, family composition, the meaning of celibacy, theology around sex, and so many other features of the evolving relationships between Christianity and sex. MacCulloch is wonderfully even-handed and reliable as a guide, even when the topics explored are controversial. VERDICT An absorbing history of Christianity from a revealing angle. Timely, enjoyable, and thoroughly worthwhile.—Zachariah Motts

Library Journal

2025-01-14
Wide-ranging study of human sexuality in the Christian context.

Noted church historian MacCulloch presents a lengthy and thorough study of the role of sex throughout Christian history. “Sex” is perhaps a limiting term, in that MacCulloch explores gender, marriage, family, celibacy, feminism, and so much else that is directly and indirectly connected to the term “sex.” The author begins by explaining how the Christian faith grew into its own identity, both informed by and in opposition to Judaism, and how a theology of sex and gender roles developed in early centuries. It did not take long for Christian leaders to conclude that sexual activity was an impediment to personal holiness, and this opinion (which has its own complex origins) soon overtook Christendom’s worldview. By the time of the Crusades, a celibate clergy held a hierarchical mantel of holiness and power over lesser, married laity. The Protestant Reformation and then the Enlightenment would revolutionize these views in some ways, but a male-dominated church remained the norm, no matter what its views on sex and marriage. As culture became increasingly secular from the 18th century onward, changes occurred not only in allowed or normative sexual activity but also in the role of women, continuing on into modern times. MacCulloch admirably covers both Eastern churches and the more dominant Roman Catholic and Protestant viewpoints, but either way in many cases his history of sex also mirrors a history of Europe. As such, he notes that views on, and theologies of, sex have been extraordinarily varied and even contradictory through time and across geography. MacCulloch is to be commended for largely avoiding the salacious and titillating; quite the opposite, his treatment of sexual history is decorous to a fault.

Well written and thoroughly researched, this comprehensive volume unveils a fascinating history.

Kirkus Reviews