DIARMAID MacCULLOCH

Diarmaid MacCulloch is Professor of the History of the Church at Oxford University. If that sounds rather dry and dusty, his writing is certainly not. His two books Reformation and The History of Christianity are two of the best books I have read in the past decade. He writes clearly about what at times can be quite dense material, he keeps things moving, he is always interesting and perceptive, and often witty. History at its best.

I wouldn't say that I was a particularly religious person. But I am a European. And the history of Europe (not all of it, admittedly, but a large part of it nevertheless) for most of the last 2,000 years has been one of Latin-speaking Christianity. If we want to understand how we came to be what we are, then we need to understand those two phenomena.

The public religiosity of modern American politicians can often sound grating or treacly to European ears. Yet it is easy to forget that until quite recently, we were all like that. Religion dominated politics, because it dominated life. Hardly anybody in Europe did not believe - absolutely and totally - in a Christian God; and that belief affected all aspects of a person's behaviour, both public and private. The great change came not when people who called themselves Christians began to differ markedly about what exactly they did believe in, to the point where they were prepared to kill and be killed in order to defend those differences - yes, this was one of the effects of the Reformation, but as MacCulloch's other book shows, such disputes had been going on for 1,000 years before Luther nailed his theses to that church door - but when the rational ideas of the Enlightenment pushed religion more and more into the private sphere. It was still OK to believe in an omnipotent being and an afterlife called heaven; yet that belief should not intrude on (say) proposals about how to structure unemployment benefit.

Despite huge technological progress since the 18th century, religious tensions seem to be on the rise again. Not necessarily amongst Christians (though there are still plenty of those; think contraception, the ordination of women and homosexuality), but between some Christians and some Muslims. Reading The History of Christianity makes you realise that it is not really belief as such that causes differences and problems, but the political structures and consequences of those beliefs. Even in the heart of the Reformation, people who thought - nay, knew -that their opponents faced an eternity of damnation, still managed to work together to solve common problems. Perhaps if more people read MacCulloch's terrific books, then we could find that common ground again today.

Walter Blotscher