TV: Sex and the Church - Witch Persecutions

Last night on BBC 2 at 9pm was the second part of a history documentary series called Sex and the Church, and a big chunk of it was about the historic witch trials in Germany. In particular, it looked at the accusations against women of having sex with the Devil. It put that in the context of Christian attitudes to sex in general.

Both the first and second episodes in the series were very interesting. The first looked at the very early Christians and teachings in the Bible, which showed far more liberal attitudes to sex than might be expected. The belief that all sex was sinful crept in later.

The second episode explained that the Protestant reformation brought in something of a sexual revolution. A backlash against that was taking place at the time when witch persecutions increased and can be seen as part of that – although the poor innocent women accused of being witches were largely scapegoats blamed for things like bad weather and failing crops.

The third part of Sex and the Church is next Friday and you can still catch up with the earlier episodes on iPlayer.

You can find out more here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05qsll9

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