Christianity is the world\u2019s biggest religion, yet the BBC has not produced a major documentary series about it for decades. That will be rectified tomorrow, when BBC Four begins A History of Christianity, a six-part series presented by Diarmaid MacCulloch, an Oxford history professor whose books about Cranmer and the Reformation have been acclaimed as masterpieces.<\/p>\n
MacCulloch is a vicar\u2019s son who grew up in \u201cone of those great Georgian rectories where Agatha Christie murders took place\u201d\u009d. He has mastered the tricks of TV presenting without hamming it up: he has all the donnish passion of David Starkey but comes across as much more self-effacing \u201d\u201c not difficult, admittedly. Underneath it all, however, the bespectacled professor is just as opinionated. Judging by the first episode of A History of Christianity, there is some vigorous axe-grinding going on.<\/p>\n