Making the Past Come Alive

Roy Jenkins guest this week is one of Britain’s most distinguished historians, who belongs to a rare group of academics with a gift for making the past come alive.

Diarmaid McCulloch scored a surprise hit with a BBC television series on the History of Christianity, together with a book of 1,200 pages. A stream of books has won every top prize available in his field, and there have been many other awards beside, not least a knighthood.

Professor MacCulloch holds the chair in the history of the church at the University of Oxford. In this candid interview he talks about aspects of his faith life as a gay Christian, the role of history and its social application and why he feels the church has always behaved badly and needs reform.

[First broadcast in April 2014]