Not God’s Type: An Atheist Academic Lays Down Her Arms

Not God’s Type: An Atheist Academic Lays Down Her Arms.  By Holly Ordway.  Ignatius Press, 2014.

 

Holly Ordway’s memoir is a conversion story as she recounts her development from a nonbeliever to a theist.  Like other recent conversion autobiographies published by Ignatius Press, like Jennifer Fulwiler’s Something Other Than God, Ordway’s Not God’s Type tells the story of how Ordway discovered Christ, told with refreshing honesty, humor, and humility. 

 

This book covers Ordway’s development with a heavy emphasis on the intellectual and mental ways that Ordway came to Christianity.  This is important, because Ordway is a scholar specializing in literature.  Ordway’s book is all about how she moved from being someone who was completely indifferent to all things spiritual, from someone who centered her life around her faith.

 

In her introduction, Ordway writes:

 

“I wrote the first version of this book just two years into my Christian journey, noting that as time went on, I would surely see more than I did at the time of writing, and that, as I continued to reflect, the story would gradually become clearer. Indeed, this has turned out to be the case.

 

Following the publication of Not God’s Type, I gave many interviews and presentations on ‘an atheist’s journey to faith,’ and was asked perceptive questions: What was my childhood experience of faith? How did I become an atheist in the first place? What changed so that I became willing to listen to arguments about the truth of Christianity?

 

I realized that the answers to these questions were found in the work of grace, starting much further back in my life than I had at first realized. More needed to be said about the early stages of my journey.

 

As I became increasingly involved in apologetics, I also recognized the importance of imagination as both the catalyst and the foundation of my rational exploration of the Faith.  It was imagination that made Christian concepts meaningful to me.  Until words like ‘God’ and ‘Jesus’ and ‘Resurrection’ became meaningful– literally, filled with meaning– rather than abstract signifiers, arguments about religion were just intellectual games, with no real-world significance.”

 

As Ordway writes, the recent Ignatius Press edition is a substantially revised version of the original Not God’s Type. The reason for this is that in the first edition of Not God’s Type, Ordway recounted her journey from atheism to Protestantism.  Since then, Ordway has continued her religious explorations and converted to Catholicism.  She has also changed the focus of her academic work significantly, leaving her West Coast career as an English professor and moving to Texas, still teaching literature, but this time leading a program specializing in Christian apologetics.

 

Ordway muses on the unexpected direction that her life took, writing:

 

“Expect the unexpected” seems to be a useful approach to the Christian life.  When I wrote the first version of the book, I was an Episcopalian and a tenured English professor in Southern California, getting an apologetics degree from a Protestant university; as I write this, I am a Catholic and director of the M.A. in Cultural Apologetics at Houston Baptist University in Texas.  You can’t make this stuff up…”

 

Indeed, there is something utterly genuine about Ordway’s book.  Ordway does not claim to have been converted through some miraculous divine revelation, or that the material aspects of her life have all been enriched through conversion and that everything is now perfect in her life.  Rather, Not God’s Type  explains how Ordway’s life has become spiritually richer, more joyful, and more purposeful thanks to her newfound faith, and her personal conversion left her much the same person in many ways, though spiritually renewed, and driven by the goal of finding ways to evangelize the Word of God, particularly to the seemingly disinterested.

 

In today’s debates over ideas and opinions, people tend to think that “winning” means shouting down or humiliating your opponents, or bullying someone you don’t like into silence, or coming up with a catchy quip that serves as a substitute for in-depth thinking.  Not God’s Type realizes the folly of such an antagonistic means of argument, especially when it comes to trying to create new Christians.  

 

The Holy Spirit does not work through intimidation, but instead it touches souls through love and the amazing transformative power of God.  Ordway realizes this, and the purpose of Not God’s Type is not to hammer out new arguments or to give believers a catchphrase to shout, but instead serves as a walk through her own life, and an illustration of how the beauty and intellectual and spiritual richness of Christianity can win over even the most secular hearts.  This book was written with the hope of making new friends in Christ, and Ordway makes her approach of winning converts by displaying the love and charity of God clear.  She writes:

 

“Too often in apologetics today, Christians are tempted to look for the silver-bullet argument, the right thing to say at the right time so that the other person will concede, “I’ve been completely wrong all along!  Give me a Bible!”  Or worse, apologists may treat argument as a rhetorical kung fu move to ‘defeat’ or ‘crush’ and atheist.  Other times Christians press people to recognize the existence of God and acknowledge their own sinfulness, quickly declaring it evidence of hardness of heart when the skeptic resists.  We forget that the Christian and the unbeliever often lack shared meaning for words like ‘God’ and ‘sin.’  All too often, we talk past the very people we are trying to help.”

 

As Ordway’s life proves, proselytizing is nothing if it only seeks to rack up converts as statistics, much like McDonald’s lists the numbers of beef patties they’ve sold (“Over 1 Billion saved!”).  Bringing people to the Church is a battle where ideally everybody will wind up a winner.  Ordway was an avid fencer for years, and in many instances throughout the book, the discussions of faith take the form of a swordplay exercise, where a duel is fought not to kill or wound an opponent, but to engage in the great thrill of engaging in an innocent and exhilarating test of skill, determination, and discipline.

 

In the end, the following passage aptly sums up Ordway’s personal spiritual experiences in a far more concise way than any amount of analysis might be able to achieve.  Ordway’s faith reflects how a Christian worldview forever altered the way she looked at every aspect of her life.

 

“Recognizing God as Creator and the Source of all goodness meant rethinking everything: nothing was exempt from that terrible scrutiny.  Recognizing him meant admitting utter and complete failure to live up to the real standard of what is good.”

 

More information about Holly Ordway can be found at her website, http://www.hieropraxis.com/.  This blog, featuring guest posts and podcasts, discusses subjects connected to Christian apologetics and provides a useful list of Ordway’s other works.

 

 

–Chris Chan

Non-Negotiable: Essential Principles of a Just Society and Humane Culture

Non-Negotiable: Essential Principles of a Just Society and Humane Culture.  By Sheila Liaugminas.  Ignatius Press, 2014.

 

Sheila Liaugminas is a broadcaster and journalist, whose coverage often specializes in religious issues.  She is a host on Relevant Radio, and her new book, Non-Negotiable: Essential Principles of a Just Society and Humane Culture is an attempt to explain Catholic social teachings and how they apply to everyday life and the most controversial issues facing American society today.

 

Towards the beginning of Liaugminas’s book, she opens by explaining that this book is meant to explain why certain principles are held by nations and religions, and that being a member of a social group such as a country or a faith requires an understanding as to why that group holds the ethics that it does.  She writes:

 

“How does a nation, or any large community of peoples, determine what is true, right, and good in structuring its governing documents?  To what authority to drafters of those guiding principles refer, and to what end?

 

The Declaration of Independence appealed to “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” in its opening statement, “to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station” to which God entitles them.  The very next line claims and orders that entitlement: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.””  (pp. 12-13).

 

Liaugminas flatly dismisses the common belief in moral relativism that states that one perspective is just as good as any other, and that new perceived rights trump older rights.  The heart of Non-Negotiable is a clash of principles, an older set of morals and values being challenged by a newer one that holds the older ways in contempt and seeks to marginalize or obliterate such perspectives from the public sphere.  This is not a particularly angry or polemical book.  On the contrary, it is generally light on emotion, although at times it seems as if Liaugminas is finding it challenging to limit her annoyance at other people’s obtuseness or bullying tactics. Liaugminas writes that she is not pleased with the current political, intellectual, and moral climates of the country and the world, writing that:

 

“The United States as a nation and the United Nations as a body of global representatives have within them powerful forces passing laws and advancing agenda that totally violates a number of the principles established in both declarations.

 

How did this happen?  How can a ruling class so boldly disregard “self-evident truths” and return to having “disregard and contempt for human rights,” ignoring declarations that should ground their every action?  How can they have constructed a new set of priorities that violate their founding principles, and advance them under the language of “rights” based on nothing more than shifting cultural relativism?”  (p. 14).

 

Non-Negotiable addresses numerous topics.  Debating the notion of what constitutes dignity, life and death, marriage and the family, the role of personal conscience in daily life, and the role that religion ought to play in society are all discussed in this book, and particular stress is played on how each subject affects all of society and the world when principles (or a lack of principles) are put into practice.

 

“As Pope Benedict XVI also said often, we live in a culture unmoored from its Judeo-Christian roots, an increasingly secular culture unmoored from its Judeo-Christian roots, an increasingly secular culture with no reference to God.  In this environment, he warned, tolerance has degenerated into indifference toward permanent values.  But even though Christians are reluctant to make a public witness to faith in this prevailing secular culture, he also warned that resigning ourselves to public indifference to truth was the heart of the crisis of the West.  If truth does not exist, Benedict said many times, then mankind cannot distinguish between good and evil.

 

That seems self-evident.  But so did the truths declared by the Founding Fathers.  They no longer are.”  (p. 16).

 

Liaugminas generally gives the impression that this book is not really about her, but rather about the ideas and principles that control the direction that society takes.  Still, at times there are instances where her personality– or perhaps her conscience– manifests itself in her work.  Throughout the book, there is a very strong sense that Liaugminas is motivated by an incredibly strong and unshakeable moral compass, where certain actions are indefensible and others are unquestionably right.  Non-Negotiable is possibly the culmination of a lifetime of following her conscience.  She recounts the following anecdote, writing:

 

“Decades ago, a little girl accompanied her father on his only business trip to the deep South, her first time to leave their Midwestern town.  Besides the new and different and “strange” sights, there was the ominous, the different way people reacted to each other.  They were in a drugstore in Alabama, and she saw a fountain with the sign “No Coloreds Allowed,” and she was outraged.  In the loud voice of an indignant child who doesn’t think of or care about the setting or context but only the boiling need to cry out, she shouted, “Dad!  They can’t do that!  They can’t treat people that way!  That’s not right!”

 

That was her initiation into “social activism.”  She didn’t know much about John F. Kennedy but was glad a Catholic was elected president and that he emphasized service.  She followed Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and admired his peaceful protests and soaring sermons and addresses.  And his noble dignity.  That impression left an imprint on this little girl’s conscience.

 

True story.  That little girl was me.

 

I continued to work for peace and social justice through the Church and the profession of journalism.  I landed in adulthood during a turbulent time when social morals and values, bedrock principles, and Gospel truths about human dignity and equality got contorted out of recognition.  Why are we seemingly closer to world war than world peace, after the lessons of the twentieth century should have been so obvious that we could not repeat its mistakes?” (pp. 16-17).

 

Non-Negotiable will serve as a particularly useful resource for people who need help understanding the Catholic Church’s teachings on certain issues and who need explanations and justifications for why the Church requires its members to behave a certain way, both publicly and privately. Liaugminas draws upon religious and historical arguments to advance her points, and she does a very strong job of explaining why certain positions are promoted by the Church and why others are rejected.

 

While Non-Negotiable is bound to be a useful guide and reference for individuals who are sympathetic to what the Church teaches, it may not prove an effective means of changing the minds of the people who are fiercely opposed to these arguments. Liaugminas’s work is based on defining the Church’s perspectives and providing additional reasons why the Church is right and others are wrong.  There are few rhetorical flourishes or catch slogans of the kind that tend to be so prevalent in today’s discourse.  If someone is looking for a book that will convert people who previously were hostile to the Church’s teachings, this book may not provoke a reversal of such views, but Liaugminas might be able to help explain issues to people who are confused about Church doctrine, and to give the faithful some additional help in a debate.

 

 

–Chris Chan

Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light

Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light.  By Mother Teresa with Brian Kolodiejchuk, Image, 2009.

 

“If I ever become a Saint–I will surely be one of “darkness.” I will continually be absent from Heaven–to light the light of those in darkness on earth.”

–Mother Teresa of Calcutta

 

Mother Teresa is a saint of modern times, known for dedicating her life to the poorest of the poor.  She is also a largely misunderstood figure.  Many of her admirers think of her as a big round yellow smiley face in a white habit with blue trim, and her few critics have leveled all sorts of allegations against her works and character.  The criticisms will be ignored here, as they largely are in Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light, since Mother Teresa’s own words and thoughts are her best possible defense, except perhaps for the words of the people whose lives she has improved.  The picture of the subject matter in this book will not shatter the opinions of Mother Teresa’s fans one whit, but it will help them learn a more complex and nuanced perspective of a remarkable woman who improved the world little by little.

 

Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light is a biography, made richer and more accessible by the heavy use of quotes from her own personal writings, including a great deal of her personal reflections, expressed in her letters to her spiritual advisor.  Mother Teresa’s thoughts and feelings are clear, purely and passionately expressed.  One can feel the emotion in them, as well as the excitement that comes from living a life that helps others and leads others to happiness. 

 

Early in the book, we learn about Mother Teresa’s before she earned the title of “Mother,” and see hear early years starting out in her apostolate:

 

 “If you could know how happy I am, as Jesus’ little spouse.  No one, not even those who are enjoying some happiness which in the world seems perfect, could I envy, because I am enjoying my complete happiness, even when I suffer something for my beloved Spouse.” (p. 18).

 

Several years ago when this book was first published, there was a minor media splash, where Mother Teresa’s periods of “spiritual darkness” were revealed and presented in some media circles as evidence of agnosticism or even atheism.  A careful reading of the book indicates that this is not the case– a sense of feeling distanced from God is a very different matter from disbelief. Kolodiejchuk notes that Mother Teresa’s spiritual life was not always a matter of sweetness and light, but the “darkness” she felt was a classic pathway in many holy people’s spiritual development.

 

“Interior darkness is nothing new in the tradition of Catholic mysticism.  In fact, it has been a common phenomenon among the numerous saints throughout Church history who have experienced what the Spanish Carmelite mystic St. John of the Cross termed the “dark night.”  The spiritual master aptly employed this term to designate the painful purifications one undergoes before reaching union with God.  They are accomplished in two phases: the “night of the senses” and the “night of the spirit.”  In the first night one is freed from attachment to sensory satisfactions and drawn into the prayer of contemplation.  While God communicates His light and love, the soul, imperfect as it is, is incapable of receiving them, and experiences them as darkness, pain, dryness, and emptiness.  Although the emptiness and absence of God are only apparent, they are a great source of suffering.  Yet, if this state is the “night of the senses” and not the result of mediocrity, laziness, or illness, one continues performing one’s duties faithfully and generously, without despondency, self-concern, or emotional disturbance.  Though consolations are no longer felt, there is a notable longing for God, and an increase of love, humility, patience, and other virtues.”  (p. 22).

 

After reading this book, it is clear that Mother Teresa consistently acted through the power of her faith.  As the biography covers the development of her charity work, she learns about the great joy that can come through compassion for those in need of help, and finding ways to alleviate terrible situations.  Mother Teresa realized through experience that she was most needed where poverty and illness were the most dire.  God was calling her to go where she was needed most.

 

“On Sundays, she used to visit the poor in the slums.  This apostolate, which she herself chose, left a deep impression on her:

 

Every Sunday I visit the poor in Calcutta’s slums.  I cannot help them, because I do not have anything, but I go to give them joy.  Last time about twenty little ones were eagerly expecting their “Ma.”  When they saw me, they ran to meet me, even skipping on one foot.  I entered.  In that “para”– that is how a group of houses is called here– twelve families were living.  Every family has only one room, two meters long and a meter and a half wide.  The door is so narrow that I hardly could enter, and the ceiling is so low that I could not stand upright… Now I do not wonder that my poor little ones love their school so much, and that so many of them suffer from tuberculosis.  The poor mother [of the family she visited] did not utter even a word of complaint about her poverty.  It was very painful for me, but at the same time I was very happy when I saw that they are happy because I visit them.  Finally the mother said to me: “Oh, Ma, come again!  Your smile brought sun into this house!”

 

To her friends back home in Skopje, she disclosed the prayer she whispered in her heart while returning to the convent: “O God, how easily I make them happy!  Give me strength to be always the light of their lives and so lead them to You!”  She could not imagine that less than a decade later her prayer would be answered: she would dedicate not just her free time, but her entire life to the poor, becoming a beacon for them through her love and compassion.” (p. 27).

 

Reading about Mother Teresa’s life may create a moral inferiority complex in many people.  After all, most people cannot (or at least do not) devote so much of their time and their energy into helping those in need.  But the point of reading a book like this is not to learn about a standard of sanctity and holiness that the average individual cannot possibly achieve, but the life of Mother Teresa is meant to shine as a guiding beacon to help people find their way through the challenges of life, inspiring them to do what they can to make the world a better place.

 

“Mother Teresa’s help, guidance and intercession are for everyone, especially those who find themselves in darkness for whatever reason.  As she had pledged, she would be “absent from heaven” to bring them light.

 

Having taken to heart Christ’s words “Love one another as I have loved you,” and made them a reality in her life, she invites us to travel along the same path:

 

“And today God keeps on loving the world.  He keeps on sending you and me to prove that He loves the world, that He still has that compassion for the world.  It is we who have to be His love, His compassion in the world of today.  But to be able to love we must have faith, for faith in action is love, and love in action is service.”

 

Mother Teresa’s life shows us that holiness can be reached by simple means.  Starting by loving the unloved, the unwanted, the lonely closest to us, in our own homes, in our communities and neighborhoods, we can follow her example of loving until it hurts, of always doing a little more than we feel ready to do.”  (p. 338).

 

There is a “Peanuts” comic strip where Linus declares that, “We’re studying the epistles of Paul in Sunday school…  I must admit it makes me feel a little guilty. I always feel like I’m reading someone else’s mail!”  Linus’s sentiments are the only slight shadow cast upon the book.  Reading this book can provoke feelings similar to Linus’s.  Mother Teresa asked that her spiritual reflections be kept secret or destroyed, but they were released with the belief that their contents could help people.  Hopefully Come Be My Light can be of comfort and encouragement for many readers.

 

 

–Chris Chan

 

"I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review."

Christendom and the West: Essays on Culture, Society and History

Christendom and the West: Essays on Culture, Society and History.  By Thomas Storck.  Four Faces Press, 1999. 

 

Thomas Storck is an essayist and cultural commenter who writes extensively on subjects such as religion and American society.  Christendom and the West: Essays on Culture, Society and History is an anthology of fourteen of his essays on assorted topics, such as “Faith and Culture,” “Is Poetry Possible?,” “The American as Universal Man,” and “The Meaning of the Catholic Intellectual Revival.”  The essays in this volume are all fairly brief, and can be read in minutes.  They can be excellent conversation starters, or can also serve as useful starting points for self-reflection.

 

The essays are designed to challenge the reader, and it is possible that a reader may find himself nodding along with the author over the course of a couple of paragraphs, only to be shaken by a confusing or thought-provoking point, or irked by the sudden introduction of an opinion with which he disagrees.

 

All of Storck’s essays are of similar levels of quality, though their content is quite wide-ranging.  In “What is Western Culture?,” Storck raises the question of what exactly the “West” is, and what went into making the modern mindset.

 

“It is interesting that modern man sees his ancestors as having been more parochial than he, whereas in fact, the opposite is true. Traditional European man was more cosmopolitan, but at the same time more rooted in place than we are. Though intensely nationalistic and looking at things though the eyes of our partial and one-sided cultures, we have very little sense of place. The patriotism of the nation-state that we cultivate is hardly the same as the local patriotism of the medievals and ancients. We have got everything exactly backwards. Because of the lack of strong nationalistic bonds and of such supra-national forces as the Latin language, a largely international academic and intellectual life, and international dynastic ties, traditional Western man rightly regarded all of Europe and the West as his home. But at the same time, he had much more of a sense of place than we have, who are apt to move about, especially within our own countries, and in fact to carry our national prejudices with us wherever we might go. If it is possible to have parochial cosmopolitans, than the modern world has managed to produce them!”

                                                                                                –“What is Western Culture?”

 

Storck repeatedly emphasizes the fact that the societies, governments, and mindsets of today are all heavily shaped by the past.  Ideas, cultures, and political policies from centuries ago all serve to shape today’s world, and it is remarkable how little the average individual knows about the long chain of events and ideas that molded the present.  Storck’s work is particularly intriguing for scholars of intellectual history, for he often contemplates how a standard mindset might be different from one century to another, and just how much people are shaped by their surroundings, both tangible and intangible.

 

Throughout his work, Storck asks the big questions: Who are we and how did we become what we are?  How does what happen in our minds affects the world around us?  Are we free to choose our own paths, or does all that came before us weight us down to a predetermined groove?  How does religion affect the mind, body, and soul?  In “The United States as a Cultural Vacuum,” Storck does not bash American culture so much as explore how the nation, ruling ideologies, and ways of life were created and evolved to the present day.

 

“The definition of what it means to be a human person that is proposed by the United States is implicit in the image we commonly have of this country. Our history as a political entity extends back only to 1776, at which time, for many, perhaps most, of us, not one of our ancestors lived within the bounds of the thirteen English colonies. But, we are told, this should not trouble us. We are all generously invited to appropriate for ourselves the status of descendants of those rebellious colonists and to make their tradition our own, and indeed to extend it back to the first English settlements in North America, to the Pilgrims and Jamestown, and back even further to England to capture such events as the signing of Magna Carta, events that are held to have contributed to the formation of the American historical and political tradition. But in reality, as we all know, our actual histories are many and disparate, some indeed to England, most to other European countries, many to Africa, increasingly many to Asia. And to an important element of the population, the Hispanics, the historical tradition extending ultimately to Europe has been incarnated for over 500 years in other parts of the Americas and with very different historical landmarks and memories.”

            –“The United States as a Cultural Vacuum”

 

At the heart of Storck’s work is the firmly stressed point that nothing stands completely on its own.  Social revolutions and cultural change do not just spring up suddenly, they are the product of what comes before them.  Furthermore, Storck frequently takes note of the fact that the historical and cultural narratives that the average person is familiar with are often factually flawed or based on false assumptions.  It is also wrong to assume that changes in society simply happen and are inevitable.  Changes in mores and expectations occur because people make decisions or assumptions, and to riff on Alexander Pope’s famous line, whatever is, is NOT necessarily right.

 

One of the most passionate essays in the volume is “The Mixed Legacy of the 1960’s,” which analyses one of the most talked-about decades of the twentieth century and explores the reasons for the alterations in accepted social mores and cultural standards.  Storck is a fierce critic of the 1960’s, but he repeatedly raises the important point that history occurs because human beings make decisions and that actions invariably have consequences.

 

“And as the counterculture's decade gave way in the 70s to another era, the use of sex to tear down the edifice of hypocrisy became more and more an act of hypocrisy itself. For the establishment culture no longer bothered to pretend that sex did not exist or pretend to chaste use of it. The establishment types simply decided that there was nothing wrong with all the sex of the counterculture, so why shouldn't they join in the fun too? It was the same with drugs. They no longer were the outward sign of a confused search for community, but now just something to do to keep from being bored. The establishment found that promiscuous sex and drugs could coexist well with MBAs and corporate jets. And as the members of the counterculture moved into their late twenties, they found there was little or nothing in their principles which prevented them from enjoying the best of both worlds too. Keep the sex and drugs and take the money too. It was too good to resist. Had there been much of intellect in the 60s rejection of the establishment, instead of intuition and feeling, then more people might have seen through the massive sellout that occurred. Or had many turned to the Catholic faith, the only living thing in Western culture capable of withstanding the bourgeois spirit, then the recent history of our country and our civilization would have been very different. But as it is the enduring value of the 60s lies in what the era can show us about actually living in a non-bourgeois manner, not in any living survivals of its spirit. With a few exceptions - of which this journal is in part an instance - what was valuable in the 60s has not survived, but the good that was achieved, amidst all its errors and excesses, always remains as an inspiration and illustration of what might be done. Even in the midst of the new bourgeois age, those who learned well the lessons the 60s had to teach, and have rejected its errors, can themselves point out truths our culture has never absorbed and thus can never transmit.”

­                          –“The Mixed Legacy of the 1960’s”

 

Christendom and the West is a fairly quick read– most of the essays are only eight or nine pages long, often including footnotes.  Many of these essays are most likely to appeal to people who already share the Church’s opinions on various social, political, or cultural matters, so the effectiveness of the book as a persuasive force is unknown.  Storck’s work will, however, help people sympathetic to the role of Christianity and Catholicism in the world understand a very important point: that ideas have consequences in the world, and the consequences often are more far-ranging than might be expected at first thought.  Storck’s essays may assist readers in crafting better critical works and opinion pieces themselves, for they are narrowly focused, routinely stress the author’s thesis, and cite evidence frequently to back up important points.

 

 

–Chris Chan

 

 

For more information on Thomas Storck, see http://www.thomasstorck.org/.  At this time, Christendom and the West has limited availability, and is sold primarily at http://www.chesterton.org/shop/christendom-and-the-west/