Diarmaid MacCulloch on Christianity, Sex, and Unsettling Settled Facts
Timestamps are as accurate as they can be but may be slightly off. We encourage you to listen to the full context.
Podcast Summary
In this fascinating conversation, Tyler Cowen interviews renowned historian Diarmaid MacCulloch about his latest book "Lower Than the A History of Sex and Christianity." (00:33) MacCulloch, emeritus professor of the history of the church at Oxford, explores how Christianity's attitudes toward sexuality and marriage have evolved over two millennia. The discussion ranges from early Christianity's egalitarian impulses to the revolutionary changes of the 12th century, when celibate clergy transformed Western marriage practices. (09:02) MacCulloch argues that the Eucharistic revolution drove clerical celibacy, which paradoxically elevated marriage for laypeople and fundamentally changed Christian sexual ethics.
• Main themes include Christianity's complex relationship with sexuality, the impact of clerical celibacy on marriage doctrine, and how religious practices shape broader social structures across centuries.
Speakers
Tyler Cowen
Host of Conversations with Tyler, produced by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Cowen is known for his wide-ranging intellectual curiosity and ability to draw insights across disciplines, bridging academic ideas with real-world applications.
Diarmaid MacCulloch
Emeritus professor of the history of the church at Oxford and now a senior research fellow at Oxford. MacCulloch has written numerous award-winning books including his Cranmer biography, sweeping histories of Christianity and the Reformation, and his latest work on sex and the church. Tyler considers him one of those rare historians whose entire body of work rewards reading, demonstrating what MacCulloch calls the historian's true vocation: unsettling settled facts to keep humanity sane.
Key Takeaways
Christianity's Early Egalitarian Innovation
MacCulloch reveals that Christianity introduced a revolutionary concept through baptism versus circumcision. (03:15) Unlike Judaism's male-centered circumcision, baptism could be received by both men and women, structuring Christianity toward equality from its inception. Paul's writings in 1 Corinthians 7 contain extraordinary statements about mutual ownership of bodies in marriage - the wife's body belongs to the husband, but equally, the husband's body belongs to the wife. (05:56) This was genuinely new in ancient culture and represents Christianity's most radical innovation. However, MacCulloch notes that most of Christian history has been "a stealthy march away from that idea" to impose normal ancient world patterns of male dominance.
The 12th Century Eucharistic Revolution
The transformation of Western Christianity in the 12th century fundamentally changed marriage and sexuality. (09:09) MacCulloch explains that changing ideas about the Eucharist led to mandatory celibacy for all Western clergy, creating a "confusion of the role of the celibate monk with that of the priest." This had extraordinary ripple effects: if clergy must be celibate and pure, then laypeople become "the only people who are practicing sex within marriage." (10:45) This logic forced the church to declare that marriage must be open to procreation, eliminating the previously acceptable practice of deliberately celibate marriages between saints and royalty.
The Protestant Reformation's Marriage Revolution
MacCulloch argues that making clergy marry again was one of Martin Luther's most transformative acts. (35:56) By ending clerical celibacy, Protestantism "absolutely transforms the rules on marriage and sexuality generally" because "the clerical family is the model of the Christian life." Previously, the celibate monk or priest had been the Christian ideal; now the married minister with wife and children became the standard all Christians should emulate. (37:19) This shift eliminated most monasteries and elevated the parish minister's family as the new pinnacle of Christian living, fundamentally changing Western Christianity's approach to sexuality and family life.
Historical Method as Humanity's Sanity Check
MacCulloch articulates a powerful vision of the historian's role in society. (57:04) Quoting Indian historian Sir Jadunath Sarkar, he notes that civil servants worried about giving public access to archives because it would "unsettle many settled facts." MacCulloch embraces this: "that is what historians do. We look at settled facts and we unsettle them, and that is good for human sanity." (57:15) He argues historians are "the profession which keeps the human race sane" by showing "what are the sane things in society and what can be a sane future" through rigorous methods for distinguishing truth from falsehood.
The Cathedral Building Boom's Economic Logic
The extraordinary cathedral building boom of the 12th-13th centuries had a specific economic and spiritual logic. (27:23) MacCulloch explains these were "factories of prayer" funded by nobility who needed spiritual help because "Christianity still disapproved of the shedding of blood" and the entire medieval European nobility was "deprived of a straight route to heaven" due to their violent lifestyle. (27:48) The development of purgatory created a "wonderfully useful way to characterize the afterlife" where prayers and masses could help purge sins, making these elaborate religious buildings economically viable investments in salvation.
Statistics & Facts
- In Jewish communities within Islam, polygyny survived "within living memory" and only ceased in the Western Jewish world in the 12th century due to pressure from surrounding Christian monogamous society. (01:32)
- MacCulloch has personally visited approximately 6,000 English parish churches, leaving "8,000 to go" out of the total network that covers virtually all of Europe in an "extraordinarily effective way of giving everyone in Europe pastoral care." (58:44)
- At the book launch for MacCulloch's latest work at St Paul's Cathedral in London, they had an audience of 1,000 people, demonstrating significant public interest in the intersection of Christianity and sexuality. (58:18)
