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Lower than the Angels
A History of Sex and Christianity
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Brief Description
A major assessment of Christianity's encounters with questions of sex, gender, and the family over the ages. 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...
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Description
A major assessment of Christianity's encounters with questions of sex, gender, and the family over the ages.
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?
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, bringing liberation for some and fury and fear for others.
Lower than the Angels by Oxford's Emeritus Professor of the History of the Church 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. It beckons us to pay attention to the sheer glorious complexity and contradictions in the history of Christianity, an epic of ordinary and extraordinary Christians trying to make sense of themselves and of humanity's deepest desires, fears, and hopes.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9780141990958
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 18 September 2025
Country: United Kingdom
Imprint: Penguin Books Ltd
Audience: General / adult, Tertiary education, Professional and scholarly
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 31.0mm
Width: 129.0mm
Height: 196.0mm
Weight: 499g
Pages: 688
About the Author
Diarmaid MacCulloch is Professor of the History of the Church at Oxford University. His Thomas Cranmer (1996) won the Whitbread Biography Prize, the James Tait Black Prize and the Duff Cooper Prize; Reformation- Europe's House Divided 1490-1700 (2004) won the Wolfson Prize and the British Academy Prize. A History of Christianity (2010), which was adapted into a six-part BBC television series, was awarded the Cundill and Hessel-Tiltman Prizes. He was knighted in 2012 and was awarded the Norton Medlicott Medal by the Historical Association in 2022.
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A major new assessment of one of the most controversial topics in history. 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...HardbackSold Out
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