A lesson learned from LOWER THAN THE ANGELS: A HISTORY OF SEX AND CHRISTIANITY, by Diarmaid MacCulloch

 Human beings have never had one set "morality" when it comes to complicated matters of sex.

    In our fractured political world of 2025, one of the most intense debates that has consumed American culture is that relating to sex and gender, and what exactly are the "proper" roles that people should be following. This is a part of a larger trend of conservative movements who have argued for decades that there is a set of "traditional family values" that America has moved away from, and that is the source of much of our national decline over the past few decades. As one who was largely raised outside of church culture, that made Diarmaid MacCulloch's new Lower than the Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity a fascinating read into a history of Christian attitudes toward those topics. It's a dense book that jumps around a lot (MacCulloch tries to include Christian-based cultures from all over the world), and that makes it hard for me to recommend to amateur History readers. MacCulloch paints a fascinating story of a religion that always operated from loose and often obscure guidelines to the topics of sex and gender, and as a result has emphasized wildly different standards of morality over the millennia.

    There's no way I could cover all the different civilizations and Christian offshoots that MacCulloch investigates throughout his book, so I will instead focus on historical tidbits he uncovered that I found fascinating and revealing. As he points out, there is an inherent challenge for anyone who tries to uncover pure truths of Biblical morality, as much Biblical text was translated from dead languages by Latin scholars. They would struggle with tasks such as finding words that fit vague concepts for which they did not have proper words in Latin for, and likewise debating which Biblical accounts were and were not legitimate. Those tasks became even more complicated when trying to subsequently update those stories for more modern languages such as English (some classic examples--ancient debates over what exactly was supposed to be included terms such as "witchcraft" and "sodomites"). In addition, it is well known there was a wildly different emphasis in tone between the Old and New Testaments, and MacCulloch notes that Jesus himself was vague on defining proper sexual standards, much to the frustration of future Christian scholars whom tried to create entire systems of moral regulation based on his pronouncements.

    Beyond the basic language and translation challenges, ancient and medieval Christian scholars also developed wildly different ideas over how exactly concepts such as marriage were supposed to work. For example, some early Christian thinkers seemed to regard the very concepts of marriage and sex with some contempt, noting that it was essential for procreation but otherwise secondary to larger human quests for truth and perfection. Others argued that marriage was essentially a contract between fathers, with the wishes of the children largely being irrelevant; yet another common argument was that marriage was essentially a matter for the state, with churches focusing on much more important philosophical discussions and activities. MacCulloch essentially blows up the entire concept that there ever was a "traditional" standard of marriage, and that the idea that one was supposed to be a religiously loving union between a husband and a wife is an essentially modern concept only dating back to around the 1800's or so.

    Overall, MacCulloch's work is a dense but fascinating work that showcases how human beings, even the most religious ones, have always had wildly different interpretations of how sex and gender were supposed to operate, and that each civilization has gone through various twists and turns regarding the topic. The idea that there is one clear standard everyone should be following simply does not fit with the historical evidence, and any effort for us to impose one is likely a futile task, one that unfortunately has led to dire persecutions over the centuries as people attempted to do so.

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