Intelligence Squared Sex, Gender and Christianity: A 3,000 Year History, with Diarmaid MacCulloch and Mary Beard (Part Two)
Mar 18, 2026
Diarmaid MacCulloch, Emeritus Professor of the History of the Church at Oxford, surveys 3,000 years of Christianity meeting sex and gender. He traces celibacy, evolving views on same-sex relations, translation pitfalls, medieval moral panics, Reformation shifts, contraception’s disruption, and why churches change slowly. Short, historical snapshots that reframe today’s debates.
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Early Christianity Had Mixed Practices On Celibacy
- Early Christian celibacy was influenced by Jewish precedents and varied: Jesus appears celibate but at least one apostle, Peter, was married.
- The New Testament shows mixed practices rather than a single ideal, with celibacy and married clergy both present in early communities.
Ancient Context Explains Christian Opposition To Same-Sex Acts
- Jewish hostility to Greek same-sex practices set the stage for Christian disapproval before Jesus's silence on the topic.
- Paul and later New Testament lists use ambiguous Greek terms (arsenokoetai, malakoi) that were later mistranslated as "homosexuals" in modern Bibles.
Medieval Story Explains Biblical Silence On Homosexuality
- Medieval Western Christianity crystallised intense hatred of same-sex acts, exemplified by a widespread invented story of a Christmas Eve massacre of sodomites.
- The tale was created to explain Jesus's biblical silence and became a popular sermonic motif across centuries.