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Lower than the Angels

A History of Sex and Christianity

Diarmaid MacCulloch

$81.95

Hardback

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English
Viking
15 April 2025
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.
By:  
Imprint:   Viking
Country of Publication:   United States
Dimensions:   Height: 242mm,  Width: 162mm,  Spine: 53mm
Weight:   885g
ISBN:   9781984878670
ISBN 10:   1984878670
Pages:   752
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Diarmaid MacCulloch is a professor of the History of the Church at Oxford University. His books include Thomas Cromwell: A Revolutionary Life; Thomas Cranmer: A Life, which won the Whitbread Biography Prize, the James Tait Black Prize, and the Duff Cooper Prize; The Reformation: A History, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Wolfson Prize; and Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years, a New York Times bestseller that won the Cundill Prize in History. A former Anglican deacon, he has presented many highly celebrated documentaries for television and radio. He lives in Oxford, England.

Reviews for Lower than the Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity

“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


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