The New York Times (Our parent company) today has revealed the official book list for the federal Bureau of Prisons' chapel project, which restricts prison chapel libraries to a narrow selection of religious reading material. All in the name of keeping us safe from the possibility that without these severely restricted lists, prisoners might find books that promote violence or radicalism. In many cases, the lists are so restrictive that they effectly clear most-if not all- books from chapel libraries.

The lists of available books are printed alongside the article, and they are strange, strange lists- bizarre, scattershot, and apparently random, filled with typos and inappropriate praise for certain books. The Justice Dept claims the lists were compiled with the aid of religious experts, but this is obviously not the case.

Although the cap is set at 131 books per faith, most have fewer, and many have fewer than a dozen. A lot of the sections appear to have been very hastily compiled, seemingly from whatever the author had access to at the time, which highlights the absurdity of trying to choose one unified reading list for any faith, let alone a dozen or more:

The "General spirituality" category includes twelve step program books, books on the evils of pornography, and books by Joseph Campbell. The "Other Religions" category contains just two books, both by or about Mary Baker Eddy, a founder of the Christian Science movement. The selections seem to be weighted heavily toward 'favored' authors*- the list for "Messianic" contains eight selections from one website on a list of only 33 books, even though the supposedly Messianic author is a member of a fringe group who have repeatedly predicted nuclear holocaust and are known to hoard weapons in anticipation of the end of the world- not a standard Messianic practice, to say the least. Books for Jewish prisoners are very heavily weighted toward Orthodox Judaism, to the near exclusion of other viewpoints.

The "Protestant" section appears to skew evangelical rather than genral protestantism, but has a few Catholic titles thrown in,** as well as popular titles such as "In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins."

The pagan section lumps Wicca, Druidry, Asatru, and other faiths together. It is heavy on Ted Andrews, Raymond Buckland, and Steve McNallen, and includes several general-ed mythology books. More than a quarter of all of them are from a single publisher (Llewellyn books), and several appear to already be out of print. A reader points out that the writings of Wiccan founder Gerald Gardner have been excluded altogether. Sadly, the pagans fare better than most non-abrahamic faiths.

Unlike the pagan section, the Nation of Islam section is very meagre, about a dozen books, and appears to be mainly comprised of scholarly works about rather than for believers, and aside from two dietary guides, there are no actual faith books at all.

Native Americans get juicy selections like "The 1837 Sketchbook of the Western Fur Trade," which sound like the sort of thing one finds in a library discard pile.

Sikhs get access to only six books, none of which are writings of the gurus- and the Sikh Holy Book is not even on the list. Worse, five of the six Sikh books approved require special orders and are not commonly available. Bahais suffer from the same lack of books or sacred texts, also restricted to just sixteen titles, with two volumes of "selected writings" of Baha'u'llah. Buddhists get a number of titles, but none from the Dalai Lama, that notable troublemaker.

Christians, of course, fare rather better, being split into Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Mormon and Messianic groups, a courtesy that couldn't be mustered up for Pagans.

There are no books for Satanists, no books on Vodoun, not a single representation for Scientologists, Sufis, New Agers, Taoists, Gnostics, or any of dozens of other faiths.

*More likely an artifact of haste- if one Dietrich Boenhoffer book is good, why not eleven?
**Which is just as well, as the Catholic list is larded with Eastern Orthodox and Protestant titles.