[PAA-Discuss] Rick Warren should be in prison

[Juli3 at aol.com]

The Federal Bureau of Prisons is purging library books on  religion. 
_Tell them to stop denying inmates' religious  freedom._ 
(http://go.sojo.net/campaign/prisonlibraries/5eg3x5rhktm63m?)  
Imagine walking into your local library, planning to read a theologian such  
as Reinhold Niebuhr or Karl Barth, or a popular inspirational work, such  as 
Rick Warren's Purpose-Driven Life or Harold Kushner's When Bad  Things Happen 
to Good People. 
But instead of finding such important and popular titles, you discover  that 
the religion section has been decimated – stripped of any book that did  not 
appear on a government-approved list. 
That's exactly what's happening right now to inmates in federal prisons under 
 a Bush administration policy. As The New York Times put it, "chaplains  have 
been quietly carrying out a systematic purge of religious books and  
materials that were once available to prisoners in chapel libraries." 
_Click here to tell the Bureau of Prisons to stop censoring prison  
libraries._ (http://go.sojo.net/campaign/prisonlibraries/5eg3x5rhktm63m?)  
The news reports seem implausible. The idea of government bureaucrats  
drafting a list of approved books on religion seems like something out of  
Soviet-era Russia, not the United States of America, where freedom of religion –  even 
for those behind prison walls – is something we treasure. 
But the reports are true. All of the books and authors named above have been  
removed from prison libraries. In some instances, according to the Times,  
chaplains have been forced to dismantle "libraries that had thousands of texts  
collected over decades, bought by the prisons, or donated by churches and  
religious groups." 
To make matters worse, the contents of the "approved" list are extremely  
capricious. For example, "80 of the 120 titles on the list for Judaism are from  
the same Orthodox publishing house," and the list for Christianity "lack[s]  
materials from early church fathers, liberal theologians and major Protestant  
denominations." 
The Bureau of Prisons says they merely want to ensure prisons are not  
recruiting grounds for terrorists and other militant groups. So why are they  
removing the vast majority of materials on faith and religion? And if prisoners  are 
not free to pursue their own faith journeys, what cause for hope should they  
have? 
Christians from across the political and theological spectrum are justifiably 
 outraged. As Mark Earley, president and chief executive officer of Chuck  
Colson's Prison Fellowship, told the Times, "It's swatting a fly with a  
sledgehammer. There's no need to get rid of literally hundreds of thousands of  books 
that are fine simply because you have a problem with an isolated book or  
piece of literature that presents extremism." 
_Stand up for inmates' religious freedom – demand an end to  censorship in 
prison libraries!_ (http://go.sojo.net/campaign/prisonlibraries/5eg3x5rhktm63m?) 
 
Thank you for all that you do. 
Blessings, 
Kevin, Duane, Tim, and the rest of the team at Sojourners/Call to Renewal 
P.S. To put an end to this absurd policy, we need the Bureau of  Prisons to 
hear from hundreds of outraged citizens. Can you share this  message with 10 of 
your friends, family, and congregation members, asking them  to join us in 
this campaign? 
Sources: 
_"Prisons Purging  Books on Faith From Libraries,"_ 
(http://go.sojo.net/ct/07qTZEK1kRKf/)  New York Times,  9/10/07.
_"2 New York  prisoners sue to get their banned religious books back,"_ 
(http://go.sojo.net/ct/0dqTZEK1kRKr/)  Associated  Press, 8/22/07.  
____________________________________
  
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