Victoria Clark's Book List

Publication Date: 28th Aug. 2007	Allies for Armageddon The Rise of Christian Zionism Millions of Americans believe that God requires them to offer uncondional moral, financial, political and military support to Israel. They are Christian Zionists, the West's religous fundamentalists, and, guided by a literal reading of the Bible, they are convinced that Jerusalem will be the epicentre of the imminent Tribulation, a seve-year period of suffering which will culminate in the Battle of Armageddon and Christ's Second Coming. In this timely and absorbing book, Victoria Clark explores the 400 year history of this powerful political ideology from its beginnings among the Puritans of 17th century England to the present-day United States, where Christian Zionists wield unprecedented influence. In an attempt understand the movement she travels through Israel and the American South, meeting its charismatic leaders and engaging with its enthusiastic followers, for whom the War on Terror is a mythic battle between good and evil, and Syria and Iran represent powers of darkness to be 'nuked' into oblivion. On the way she asks the questions that really matter: are the Christian Zionist leaders telling the truth when they boast about their close links with the White House? How do Israelis feel about being given support by evangelicals who think they are doomed to hellfire? And what effect does the powerful Christian Zionist lobby have on the complex and volatile situation in the Middle East? Fascinating and disturbing in equal measure, this is an extraordinary journey into the heart of Christian fundamentalism and American power.
	Holy Fire The Battle for Christ's Tomb 'Holy Fire invades the church, a fast-breeding light transfiguring faces, transferring the dark stone space. I hear gasps and cheers and sobs and tears, The emotion is overwhelming, the heat suffocating...' Crowds of the faithful stumble out of Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre into the white light of day, shielding their lighted candles from the breeze. An Orthodox priest from Bethlehem's besieged Church of the Nativity heads back through the Israeli checkpoints, his Holy Fire safe in a tin lantern. A Greek bishop seated in a limousine, Holy Fire in a lamp on his lap, is already speeding towards Ben-Gurion airport to catch the specially chartered flight back to Athens in time for the Easter service. Every year in Jeruslaem the 'miracle' of the Holy Fire - the spontaneous ignition of lamps inside the shrine containing Christ's tomb - is enacted in front of thousands of the faithful. For centuries, Orthodox Christian pilgrims have made the arduous journey to witness it: the proof they need that God favours them above not only Jews and Muslims, but also above all other Christians. Throughout that time Jerusalem has been a city of profound religous and political unrest, the focus of the aggressive campaigns of the medieval Crusaders, the empire-building of 19th century European powers and today's zealous, through unlikely, champions of Israel's cause, the Christian Zionists. Holy Fire presents the unending battle waged by various denominations of churchmen for their saviour's empty tombs as a microcosm of wider power struggles. Deftly weaving history, reportage and religion into a fluid and fascianting account of centuries of battles fought in God's name, Victoria Clark explores the contribution that the Christian world has made to the unfolding tragedy of the Holy Land - at a time when it has never been more urgent for the West to see itself as others see it.
	The Far-Farers A Journey from Viking Iceland to Crusader Jerusalem Just before the year 1000 a young Viking named Thorvald the Far-farer turned his back on the pagan gods of his fathers to preach the Christian gospel. But his Icealndic countrymen mocked him as a homosexual, stoned him and finally outlawed him. Abandoning his homeland, Thorvald embarked on an epic journey to the golden heart of all medieval maps - Jerusalem. A thousand years later, in the year 2000, Victoria Clark embarked on the same journey to discover to what extent the dramatic changes and conflicts sweeping western Europe a thousand years ago still resonate today. The Far-Farers is both the story of this 21st century journey and a history of extraordinary 11th century western Christendom. In this remarkable book she gathers a group of influential 11th century characters. Viking Thorvald, emperors of East and West, Christendom, abbots, saints, princesses, a robber Norman and Crusaders are personally or professionally connected one to another in a historical chain extending down the century and all the way from Iceland to the Holy Land. Western Europe was struggling to unite in the 11th century, expanding rapidly and changing utterly. Warfare, peacekeeping, multinational monasticism, institutional power struggles, mass pilgrim travel, and rising religious fundamentlaism, were a few of its salient characteristics. In short, it was a world more like our own than we might imagine. The 21st century people she encounters as she travels through Iceland, central and western Europe, the Balkans, Turkey and the Middle East cast fresh light on both worlds. A Swedish violinist she meets on a Turkish train reclaims the religion of his pagan Viking ancestors. In the ancient capital of Poland, a young Catholic priest scorns the idea of Europe uniting in the name of human rights instead of Christ. A Greek Jewess in Thessaloniki makes her peace with a thousand years of her people's persecution. At the Crusader stronghold of Krac-les-Chevaliers a Syrian playboy highlights the deep and widening gulf between the West and Islam. A richly evocative and beautifully written work, The Far-Farers is neither conventional history nor travel, but a powerful and authoritative demonstration of our enduring connection with the distant past.&
	Why Angels Fall A Portrait of Eastern Orthodox Europe In the remote monasteries of Greece, Kosovo, Siberia and Cyrpus, a Christian monk of the Eastern Orthodox rite grows his beard and dons the black 'angelic habit'. Leaving the world behind him, he devotes himself to the pursuit of an ascetic ideal as ancient and mysterious as any candlelit Orthodox church. But if the ideal is sublime, the practice can be perturbing. Victoria Clark paints a starting portrait of Eastern Orthodoxy in Europe by uncovering deep traces of the past in the turmoil of the region's present. A 1054 schism between the Churches of Rome and Constantinople created Europe's oldest and most durable fault line, represented today by the Catholic/Protestant West and the Orthodox East. Originally a Byzantine culture, Orthodoxy has survived centuries of Ottoman Moslem rule and, more recently, decades of Communism. Now, the religion, the mindset and the world view arre reviving in the vacuum left by the end of the Cold War, with the churchmen, who have always been the guardians of the tradition, taking the lead. In casual but unconsciously revealing encounters with monks, nuns, priests, bishops and archbishops, in monasteries ancient and modern from Kosovo, to Siberia to Cyprus, Victoria Clark measures the depth and width of the tragically growing gulf between the twin Christian civilisations of Europe. A Bosnian Serb bishop's enthusiasm for 'ethnic cleansing', Romania's current boom in monastery building, Greece's neo-Byzantine climate, Russian anti-Semitism and the power of the Greek Cypriot Church are all manifestations of a civilisation scarred by centuries-old, unforgotten traumas. Demonstrating a rare sympathy and understanding of the region, Victoria Clark's perspective is fresh and her message sobering: the dangerously underrated significance of the 1054 scar through the heart of Europe is deep enough to ruin hopes for a peacefully united future.