Wrong answers, but the leading question is still appropriate.

Friend and author Brad Whittington recently released What Would Jesus Drink: What the Bible Really Says About Alcohol, a short work that looks at every line in the Bible that refers to wine or strong drink—all 247 of them (references, not types of drink).

With wine as such an integral part of first century life and oftentimes such a divisive issue among Christians today, a short treatise on what the Bible really says about drinking is long overdue. Brad was even kind enough to include the reference list at the end of the book, as well as a list of other works on the same topic from those who may disagree with his conclusions.

What are his conclusions? You’ll have to get the book to find out. The Kindle edition is currently only 99 cents too, so if you’re even remotely interested, the information far outweighs the cost.

Additionally, any book that’s able to pull an endorsement quote from A.J. Jacobs, author of The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible, is worth reading in my book. (Year is a book you should read as well). Little known fact: Year quotes from Brad’s early material that eventually led to What Would Jesus Drink.

And, for what it’s worth, everyone knows that Jesus would drink Guinness because this book (and good taste) say so.

What are your thoughts on drinking and the Christian life?

nuttakit / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Inspired by the Top 10 Worst End-of-the-Year Top 10 lists list that we posted at FaithVillage, here is my own Top 10 End-of-the-Year Top 10 lists list.

10. The Best Selling Video Games of 2011
Sadly, my absolute favorite of the year, Portal 2, was ranked #10. It’s one of the smartest games in existence. I’m playing through #8, L.A. Noire, during my Christmas break, and it’s a little unnerving to have more than a few actors from Mad Men (including the game’s lead actor) appear in the game.

9. Top 10 Words of the Year
As a writer, I felt like I had to include this, but the words this year are lame. I’ll save you the trouble: The word that was most looked up online in 2011 was “pragmatic.” Additionally, “‘austerity’ also made the top 10 list in 2011 along with ambivalence, insidious, didactic, diversity, capitalism, socialism, vitriol and ‘apres moi le deluge.’

8. Top 10 Most Bizzare Tech Stories of 2011
This list exists because someone failed to tell someone else that just because you can do something doesn’t necessarily mean that you should do something. A self-hugging vest? An internet-enabled kissing machine? An MC Hammer search engine? At least they all have this in common: They make me say, “What the what?”

7. Top 10 Gorgeous Gadgets of 2011
Function does not have to follow form. These gadgets remind us that useful tech doesn’t have to be just a metal box.

6. 10 Most Viewed YouTube Videos of 2011
#1 makes me weep for humanity. My favorite is #2, embedded below.

5. Top 10 DFW Sports Moments of 2011
As a recent resident of the DFW area, I couldn’t have picked a better place or year to root for the home team. Having never lived close enough to an NBA (or NFL or MLB) franchise to attend games, I had the opportunity to attend multiple Mavs games, two Cowboys games, and multiple Rangers’ games. I even went to an FC Dallas soccer match, but don’t tell anyone. I was thrilled when the Mavs took home the Larry O’Brien, but I fear this year is going to be quite different. I still plan to attend the games though.

4. Top 10 New iPhone Gaming Apps for 2011
No list can exist on my website if it doesn’t refer to an Apple product at least once. My faves on this list include Jetpack Joyride and Scribblenauts Remix. I’m also addicted to Tower Run, which isn’t on the list, but should be. For more 2011 iPhone fun, check out the Best iPhone Apps of 2011 (get Flipboard A.S.A.P.) and the 50 Best iPhone Apps of 2011.

3. The 45 Most Powerful Images of 2011
Yeah, so it’s not a Top 10 list, but the pictures are powerful. Many of them deal with the devastation that’s been wrought throughout the world this year, whether through natural catastrophe or human depravity. You’ve been warned. While each picture elicited a certain response from me, #20 was the most moving to me.

2. Rolling Stone‘s 10 Best Movies of 2011
I’ve seen five of them, including Peter Travers’ intriguing, brutal pick for the best of the year. I still don’t know what to think of #8, but I do know that I counted 20+ people who walked out of the theater when I saw it. It was as equally sublime as it was pretentious. As for the ones I haven’t seen, they’re on my to-be-seen list.

1. The Top 10 FaithVillage Posts of 2011
One of my articles (a Top 10 list itself) barely eked onto the list, but I’m proud of our team and highly appreciative of our contributors. I’m also pleased that our list is topically diverse and by multiple writers. One of our goals is to always have quality content that’s sure to connect with nearly any type of reader. In other words, if you’re a Christian, you should be able to find something helpful or inspiring on our site. I hope you’ll bookmark us, subscribe to our RSS feed, or sign up for our email newsletter. I’m anxious for 2012 at FV!

What was your favorite Top 10 list of 2011?

How many books did you read this year?

While I feel that a Top 10 books list is somewhat wanting when taken from a field of only 22, there are reads here that should definitely be included on your to-read list.

10. Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro

I read Never Let Me Go as a result of 101books.net. It’s an interesting story from the perspective of a clone built solely for organ donations, but I didn’t see how or why it was included on Time‘s Top 100 list. Did I miss the deeper meaning? Or was I just put off by the writing style? I’m still not sure.

9. Quitter, Jon Acuff

Quitter arrived at an interesting point in my life. I had already done what Acuff says not to do—namely, quit your day job to pursue your dream job without having another job lined up, though I’d argue that circumstances dictated my particular route, and I didn’t quit to pursue my dream job, although that’s what eventually happened.

Fortunately, just as my savings were depleted, I was given the opportunity to write for a law firm. A good friend met Jon at a book signing and picked up the book for me (and had it signed). A few months later I actually landed my dream job and in some strange way, I’d been doing what Acuff recommends for years, i.e. working toward that goal by pursuing writing (or art or music or whatever it is that makes you think, “If only someone would pay me to do this, then I’d never work again.”) during my non-work time. If you’re in that spot where you’ve spent too much time doing things you only tolerate, Quitter may be the book to help you realistically dream about a better tomorrow.

8. Decision Points, George W. Bush

I wouldn’t call myself a particularly political person, but I had to read about some of the transformative world events that occurred over the last decade, especially from the vantage point of one who was in the absolute middle of it all. Decision Points was fascinating and caused my respect for any sitting President to increase all the more.

7. The Hunger Games / Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins

From time to time, I’m a latecomer to the newest craze, a slow runner trying to catch up to an overflowing bandwagon. I didn’t read the Harry Potter series until right before the last book was released. Both then and now, I’m glad to have hopped aboard, especially with the imminent release of the movies. The books are easy to read, engrossing enough, and have just the right amount of Ender’s Game kids-as-killers to be subversively enticing.

6. Sanctuary of the Soul: Journey into Meditative Prayer, Richard Foster

Ever since Celebration of Discipline, I’ve been a fan of Richard Foster’s engaging style and practical thoughts on spirituality. Sanctuary delves into the practice of meditative prayer, something I need to learn to incorporate into my own life instead of just replying @God with 140-character prayers. I reviewed Sanctuary of the Soul for FaithVillage.

5. Jesus Land: A Memoir, Julia Scheeres

I read Jesus Land much earlier this year, but I recall it being a sad story of a sister who’s white and her adopted brother who’s black who both endured incredible hardship at a “Christian” camp in the Dominican Republic. It’s a shocking reminder of what happens when the words of Christ are terribly transformed into strict legalism.

4. King’s Cross: The Story of the World in the Life of Jesus, Tim Keller

Until King’s Cross, I had only heard of Dr. Keller through quotes and other writers. Now I know why people respect him and his works. King’s Cross looks at the gospel of Mark and uses clear, everyday language to elucidate much of what happened in this action-packed gospel. Dr. Keller is often touted as a present-day C.S. Lewis, and from reading King’s Cross I can see why. I’m anxious to consume more.

3. Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, Eric Metaxes

Though I had attempted to read The Cost of Discipleship as a teenager, I knew little of Bonhoeffer the man. Now I feel as if I know too much. As a book of 624 pages, it’s not a quick read. Delving into his life in Germany, America, and throughout Europe leading up to and including World War II, Bonhoeffer is a close study of the man whose beliefs would eventually lead him to become part of the plot to kill Hitler.

Knowing that he would die as a result of his efforts makes the last few chapters of the book a rather breathtaking read as you wait to see how it all ends. But what stands out about Bonhoeffer the man is his unswerving allegiance to Christ and his ability to live out the Christian life under incredibly difficult circumstances. (Our Christian Living Editor at FaithVillage talked to Eric Metexas about his book)

2. Jesus, My Father, The CIA, and Me: A Memoir. . . of Sorts, Ian Morgan Cron

What’s not to love about an author who, when meeting him for the first time and saying “I plan to get your book soon,” pulls out a copy from his bag, signs it, then hands it to you free of charge? I was predisposed to like Jesus, My Father simply due to that generous exchange, but even had I not met Ian, I would have liked the book. Equally funny as it is touching, Cron honestly recounts growing up with an alcoholic father who just so happened to also work for the CIA at times. The book is well worth your time and your dollars. Here’s my review of Jesus, My Father, the CIA, and Me on Amazon. Here’s our three-part FaithVillage interview with Ian too.

1. Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson

Currently, Steve Jobs’ biography is the #1 selling book on Amazon. This is not surprising. Steve Jobs was a much lauded technological luminary who passed from this world far too soon. I found this biography enthralling, especially as it recounted the early, near mythological days when Steve and Woz founded Apple in their garage.

While Isaacson rarely delves into the reasons Jobs was who he became (controlling, easily angered, brilliant), Jobs’ early childhood abandonment by his parents may have cast an inescapable shadow over his whole life. It’s fascinating to think that, had his parents never put him up for adoption, we may never have had iPods, iPhones, iPads, iTunes, MacBooks, or Pixar. (Lastly, I wrote an article about Steve Jobs’ resignation that was sadly prescient in some ways).

What are your top books for the year?

CC Image • Emborg on Flickr

In high school, I was one of those kids.

Nerd. Dweeb. Dork. Maybe the most appropriate descriptive is “bookish.” I loved to read, and for some strange reason after I entered High School, I got onto a classics kick. I devoured Dickens. I dared Dumas and Dostoevsky to entertain me. The most egregious of my prideful reading sins was battling Tolstoy. I read War and Peace in High School.

I didn’t go on many dates that year. And by “many” I mean “none.”

If you ask me now what I know about War and Peace, I’ll tell you that war happens, and peace happens, but that’s likely not what the book is about. There is no reason for a 15-year-old to read War and Peace. The only reason I ever read it is because it was the longest book I knew existed and I wanted to be able to say that I read an incredibly long book, regardless of the fact that I likely only understood ten percent of it.

Which leads me back to Bruce’s post about the long novel. He links to an article by Mark O’Connell entitled The Stockholm Syndrome Theory of Long Novels which proposes that readers, like captives, can became attached to their kidnapper if even the smallest amount of goodwill is shown to them at any time during their captivity. It’s a great read.

A paragraph that Bruce pulls from that piece resonated with me (emphasis mine):

“You finish the last page of a book like [Pynchon's] Gravity’s Rainbow and—even if you’ve spent much of it in a state of bewilderment or frustration or irritation—you think to yourself, ‘that was monumental.’ But it strikes me that this sense of monumentality, this gratified speechlessness that we tend to feel at such moments of closure and valediction, has at least as much to do with our own sense of achievement in having read the thing as it does with a sense of the author’s achievement in having written it. When you read the kind of novel that promises to increase the strength of your upper-body as much as the height of your brow—a Ulysses or a Brothers Karamazov or a Gravity’s Rainbow—there’s an awe about the scale of the work which, rightly, informs your response to it but which, more problematically, is often difficult to separate from an awe at the fact of your own surmounting of it.“

That’s why I read War and Peace. In some strange way, it was an achievement that made a socially awkward and quiet kid feel confident in himself.

Allow me to humblebrag for a moment. (You’ll have an opportunity as well). Since then, I’ve read a number of long books that have held me captive:

• The Count of Monte Cristo: One of my favorite books of all time
• The Bible: Also one of my favorite books of all time
• The Lord of the Rings Trilogy: Series count for this list
• The Harry Potter Series
• The Faerie Queen: This is what happens when you become an English Major
• Steve Jobs
• Bonhoeffer: This is the book likely responsible for this post. It took me months to finish, but I recently finished it.
• David Copperfield: Yep. Read it in H.S.
• The Book of Basketball: One man’s fascinating look at the top NBA players of all time
• Crime and Punishment
• Moby Dick
• East of Eden

Since reading Bruce’s blog and seeing that Infinite Jest was on the list, a book which I’ve started before but didn’t even get past 100 pages, I’m encouraged to give it another try.

Here’s your chance to humblebrag: What long novels have held you captive?

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My GoodReads account tells me that I have 159 books on my “to read” shelf. This is not a good sign, especially since my job asks me to review a number of books. I’m not sure what this says about me, other than book buying is therapeutic for me. Or that I’m not reading as much or as often as I’d like to.

However, even into early adulthood, I felt compelled to finish any book I’d started, even if it wasn’t an engaging read. I’m still learning that the author won’t take it personally if I only make it halfway through. With so much that I want to read, I’m learning to take solace in Dorothy Parker’s famous quote,

“This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.”

I need to start throwing more books, simply so I can read more of the good ones. To that end, I need to ask honest questions of myself and of you.

What books have you never read that you should have by now?

Don’t be ashamed to answer. This is a safe place (and you can always leave an anonymous comment if you so chose).

For me, those books include

• Don Quixote
• The Power and the Glory
• For Whom the Bell Tolls
• On the Road
• Infinite Jest
• Slaughterhouse Five
• The Hero with a Thousand Faces
• The Divine Conspiracy
• The Everlasting Man

And likely dozens of others that I don’t own. So, what’s on your list?
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The inspiration for this post came from a similar post on Robert Bruce’s 101 Books blog, where he’s blogging through Time Magazine’s 100 greatest novels. For book lovers, it’s a great site that may introduce you to some works that have never crossed your reading radar.