Lower than the Angels
A History of Sex and Christianity
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Penguin Books Ltd
Published:19th Sep '24
Should be back in stock very soon
The Bible observes that God made humanity ‘for a while a little lower than the angels’. If humans are that close to angels, does the difference lie in human sexuality and what we do with it? 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. In a single lifetime, Christianity or historically Christian societies have witnessed one of the most extraordinary about-turns in attitudes to sex and gender in human history. There have followed revolutions in the place of women in society, a new place for same-sex love amid the spectrum of human emotions and a public exploration of gender and trans identity. For many the new situation has brought exciting liberation – for others, fury and fear.
This book seeks to calm fears and encourage understanding through telling a 3000-year-long tale of Christians encountering sex, gender and the family, with noises off from their sacred texts. The message of Lower than the Angels is simple, necessary and timely: to pay attention to the sheer glorious 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.
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. -- Lucy Winkett * Financial Times *
A compelling and encyclopedic survey of how Christianity makes sense of sexual desire. MacCulloch is an ideal guide in tracing this story... [he] writes with such liveliness and energy that the reader hardly notices the length of the book or the comprehensiveness of its field of reference … His narrative is dispassionate, sometimes quietly and wittily deflationary, careful and generous, its own moral compass neither intrusive nor indecipherable…. He is judicious and convincing. -- Rowan Williams * Sunday Telegraph *
Immensely broad in scope, incredibly detailed and enormously readable, with no small measure of humour… This is a book which repays the reader time and again. The overarching narrative is fascinating ad the treatment of the subject is magisterial. -- William Naphy * Literary Review *
Incendiary ... a comprehensive and richly entertaining history of the ways in which, for 3,000 years, the church has tied itself in knots over sex (and love and marriage). [It] offers a fabulous catalogue of the babel of voices in the Bible and the ways that they have been interpreted, invariably for political purposes, down the centuries. -- Tim Adams * Observer *
Diarmaid MacCulloch explains in Lower than the Angels [how] many biblical pronouncements on sexuality are ambiguous, if not downright contradictory ... by showing us the bigger picture, MacCulloch allows the reader to fully appreciate the complexity and diversity of Christian experience, and to identify recurrent themes. Those who are offended by the loose morals of contemporary Western society will surely be further angered by this thought-provoking and compassionate book. -- Katherine Harvey * Engelsberg Ideas *
Wry and original… As a compendious and rigorous guide to the histories that underlie current church debates on sex and gender, this work is invaluable. -- Penelope Cowell Doe * Church Times *
[A] magisterial account of three millennia of recorded history, written in both cheerfully irreverent and briskly expository style ... Encompassing everything from marriage to masturbation, from contraception to the immaculate conception, Lower than the Angels is an exhaustive study. -- Pratinav Anil * Sunday Times *
Compendious * Economist *
ISBN: 9780241400937
Dimensions: 242mm x 161mm x 43mm
Weight: 1185g
688 pages