‘Lower than the Angels: a history of Sex and Christianity’ by Diarmaid MacCulloch, published by Allen Lane, 2024. This review first appeared in the patronal issue of The Parish Paper at St Peter’s Church, Eastern Hill, Melbourne, June 2025. Anyone familiar with Diarmaid MacCulloch’s breadth and depth of research and his powers of synthesis is inspired anew by his latest big-picture history of Christianity. His confessed purpose is to unsettle settled ideas. Indeed, when it comes to his chosen subject of sex, the reader must reconsider all manner of lifetime assumptions, left wondering what conclusions can be drawn. Just two assumptions are enough for starters. 1. There have always been church weddings. This assumption is flatly disproven by MacCulloch. The church in early centuries had remarkably little to do with the ceremonies of marriage, a fact supported by a complete lack of any liturgical evidence. Blessings of marriag...