Costco has apparently had a “Come-to-Jesus” epiphany.
The national warehouse chain has apologized for labeling Bibles in a Simi Valley, Calif. store as fiction, calling it an error that they are working quickly to correct.
“We deeply regret the mislabeling of the Bible and meant no offense to anyone,” the company wrote in an email received by several customers. “The buyer has let us know that this was an error and the books are being pulled off the shelves to be re-marked.”
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Cue the angelic choirs.
We received a statement from Costco, too, it reads: ” Costco’s distributor mislabeled a small percentage of the Bibles, however we take responsibility and should have caught the mistake. We are correcting this with them for future distribution. In addition, we are immediately relabeling all mislabeled Bibles. We greatly apologize for this error.”
Here’s how all this started. I received a phone call from Caleb Kaltenbach, the pastor of Discovery Church in Simi Valley, Calif. He was shopping at Costco last Friday when he discovered all the Bibles were labeled as fiction.
He knew something must be amiss so he set off in search of a Costco employee hoping for an answer. Unfortunately, he couldn’t find anyone willing to answer his question.
Since no one in the store was willing to offer assistance, the pastor snapped a photograph of the Bible and tweeted it to his flock.
Pastor Kaltenbach said he’s not one to speak out on such slights, but seeing the Good Book labeled as fiction was bit too much to take.
“On the one hand Christians should not yell out ‘persecution’,” he said. “We aren’t living in Iraq or Iran. But on the other hand, I believe that we do need to stand up for our faith and we need to be vocal about our concerns.”
That’s a message that resonates with pastor and author Robert Jeffress.
“Christians need to call out organizations like Costco whose actions undermine Christianity – regardless of whether those actions are accidental or intentional,” Jeffress told me.
There you have it, good readers. Costco has seen the error of its way and repented. As the Good Book says, “Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”
Go, therefore, and buy your 30 gallons of laundry detergent in peace.
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