The Top Ten Titles that Didn't Take for 'Sacred Dissonance'

Just yesterday I put my hands on my newest coauthored book Sacred Dissonance. This is a Behrendt and Le Donne joint with a foreword from A.-J. Levine.

I couldn't be more proud of this project. Well, I guess I would be a bit more proud if it wasn't so much a book about Jews and Christian in dialogue as it was, instead, a time machine that only allowed good things to happen as a result of using it. If my book was really a time machine, I could go back in time and kidnap Abraham Lincoln before he was shot and bring him into 2016 to get nominated by the Republican Party. Or I suppose it would be more worthy of pride if, instead of being a book, it was a dog who could talk. That would be so cool. I mean, if I had invented a real, live, talking dog.... well.

But short of the Lincoln or talking-dog possibilities, Sacred Dissonance is near the very top of things which give me pride. They say that pride cometh before the fall. So, naturally, I thought I'd follow this achievement with a really stupid blog post that will surely reveal nothing but my own banal depravity.

As you know, books generally have titles. These titles are selected using words that mean things depending on how they are juxtaposed with other words and inflected according to the norms of grammar. So, you see, titles are difficult things to invent. Here are a few of the titles that Larry and I considered before landing on "Sacred Dissonance: The Blessing of Difference in Jewish-Christian Dialogue." In descending order:

10. Judeo-Christian Values for the Willfully Ignorant: That Time I met a Rabbi and Now I'm an Expert

9. Guess Who's Coming to Seder? Cultural Appropriation Made Simple

8. Blah, Blah, Blah, Proselytization, Blah, Blah, Blah, Original Sin

7. Gettin' Jewy with Jesus: a Seven-step Guide to Offending Everyone

6. I am Groot: I am Groot

5. You Stole My Jesus Fish! the Gospel according to Puddy

4. An Anachronistic Anarchist: Alogical Alliteration alongside Alligators

3. My Bubbe Says I'm Tubby: Stuff our Grandmothers Taught Us about Fattening Up

2. The Leadership Habits of St. Francis: How to eschew Guns and woo Nuns

 . . . . and the top title that didn't take:

1. Who's that Shiksa at my Bat Mitzvah? A Feminist Companion to Dialogue written by Two Dudes

Order your copy at http://www.hendrickson.com/html/product/070672.trade.html

It's the perfect Christmas gift for all of your most Jewish friends!