Lower Than the Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity - A Virtual Book Talk with Diarmaid MacCulloch

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 centers 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.

In Lower than the Angels, Diarmaid MacCulloch 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.

Join us to learn more about an epic of ordinary and extraordinary Christians trying to make sense of themselves and of humanity’s deepest desires, fears, and hopes.

Email any questions to programs@14beacon.org.

SPEAKER BIO

Rev. Prof. Diarmaid MacCulloch is Emeritus Professor of the History of the Church, Oxford University, and Fellow of St Cross College and of Campion Hall. His Thomas Cranmer: A Life first appeared in 1996, winning inter alia the Whitbread Biography Prize. His History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (accompanied by the BBC TV series A History of Christianity) won the 2010 Cundill Prize; his Thomas Cromwell: A Life was published in 2018. His BBC TV series of 2015, Sex and the Church, was a foretaste of Lower than the Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity (2024). He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2012.