Diarmaid MacCulloch
Rev. Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch Kt, DD, FBA (Churchill, 1969) is a world-renowned historian, Emeritus Professor of the History of the Church at Oxford University, and Fellow of St Cross College and of Campion Hall.
Diarmaid’s most recent book has been described by the FT as
“Magisterial ... In Lower than the Angels, Diarmaid MacCulloch offers a history of sex and Christianity that is both confronting and reassuring in its detail and complexity, taking biblical scholarship and theological development seriously at the same time as insisting on the historian’s independence. A thrilling read.”
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In an interview with the BBC, Dairmaid explained why he did not follow his father into priesthood of the Church of England:
"I was ordained Deacon. But, being a gay man, it was just impossible to proceed further, within the conditions of the Anglican set-up, because I was determined that I would make no bones about who I was; I was brought up to be truthful, and truth has always mattered to me. The Church couldn't cope and so we parted company. It was a miserable experience."
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Diarmaid’s biography Thomas Cranmer: a Life (1996) won the 1996 Whitbread Biography, Duff Cooper and James Tait Black Prizes. His Reformation: Europe’s House Divided 1490-1700 (2003), won the 2004 Wolfson History Prize, the 2004 British Academy Prize and the 2005 Non-Fiction Award of the National Book Critics Circle of America. His A History of Christianity: the first three thousand years, won the 2010 Hessell-Tiltman Prize and the 2010 Cundill History Prize, Montreal. His three-part TV series for BBC2, How God made the English, aired in March 2012. He was knighted in the New Year's Honours List of 2012.