Today we released the March 2016 edition of First Things on our website. For the amusement of readers (and the delight of anyone who likes to get a glimpse behind the curtain), I have compiled some of the also-ran titles: headings for pieces that were suggested at our titles meeting but nixed for being too punny, too punchy, or simply too much.
In the list below, the final title of the piece is in bold, and the nixed titles are listed below it. Enjoy!
Coates’s Lost Cause by R. R. Reno
Apostle of Grievance
The Body’s Lessons by Sarah Ruden
The Heresy of Weightlessness
Womanhood Contracted to a Span
Monument to Failure by Justin Shubow
Artless Architecture
Tear it Down!
March Madness? Just Say No by Gilbert Meilander
Standing Athwart the NCAA
Haven’t an Inkling by A. N. Wilson
A Rosicrucian at Oxford
Backstreet Mystic
Cult-Leader of Coinherence
The Green and the Brown by Helen Andrews
Ecological Sturm und Drang
The Garden of Nazi Delights
Alexi Sargeant is a Junior Fellow at First Things.
The Church in the Age of Therapy
In 1966, Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic that “Religious man was born to…
Canada’s Deadliest Blind Spot
On September 20, the Daily Mail ran a story with the provocative headline, “Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother…
The Faithful Joy of Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen
Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore…