Book review: Oxford professor challenges Christianity's model of a 'male and female' binary system

Diarmaid MacCulloch's history of sex and Christianity touches on knotty issues such as the distinction between sex and gender, contraception and how sex has played an important role in 'promoting right-wing secular politics'

Diarmaid MacCulloch made tabloid headlines in the 80s as the first openly gay man to apply to be ordained as an Anglican vicar.

• Lower than the Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity
• Diarmaid MacCulloch
• Allen Lane, £35