Note: This is an old version of this story. To see the "2nd edition," please visit The Cheshire Christ: Second Edition.

Introduction by Tom Howard

Whether it would be technically exact to say that a new genre of book has appeared in the last ten years, it would certainly be an asseveration easy to agree with. The genre is the evangelical-conversion-to-Roman-Catholicism narrative. There must be a whole shelf of such books by now.

This would seem to be a shaky way to introduce yet another contribution to this genre (oh, yawn: not another one!), except for one very large factor: the present volume is unlike the others in various respects. (I write this as one who has himself contributed to the genre.)

For a start, there is the feisty-but-amiable prose. Mr. Krehbiel goes about his task with great zest. He is not above firing off a Roman candle or two (no pun intended), and there is a muscularity and agility about his way of saying things that can only delight. Without being frivolous, he can be chatty---but it is a chattiness used prudently, and never in a way out of harmony with his massively serious topic. We are never siphoned away from the substance of what he is saying by mere special effects.

Secondly, there is the candor of the whole thing. Again, he steers a prudent course. Candor can very quickly slop over into exhibitionism and swagger. Not here. When it is to the point for him to be autobiographical, he is: but we are never invited to look away from the topic at hand and watch the juggler, so to speak.

Third, a reader cannot get very far with this narrative without finding immense respect for the author's punctilious and thoroughgoing coverage of his material stealing over him. The man not only knows what he is talking about: he knows everything about it.

Fourth, we might list the gratifying orderliness of the whole thing. The background is set (with unflagging charity, it might be remarked), and the steps toward his destination in the Roman Catholic Church all follow quite inevitably upon one another.

I think I have read most of the volumes in the genre of which I am speaking here, and I would place Mr. Krehbiel's work very high in the bibliography.

Thomas Howard
Manchester, MA