What do the Bible, The Hunger Games and Fifty Shades of Grey have in common? All three are works of fiction, according to the booksellers at Costco.
Pastor Caleb Kaltenbach made that shocking discovery last Friday as he was shopping for a present for his wife at a Costco in Simi Valley, Calif.
“All the Bibles were labeled as fiction,” the pastor told me. “It seemed bizarre to me.”
Kaltenbach is the lead pastor at Discovery Church, a non-denominational Christian congregation in southern California.
He thought there must be some sort of mistake so he scoured the shelf for other Bibles. Every copy was plastered with a sticker that read, “$14.99 Fiction.”
The pastor 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 (which is not all that surprising if you’ve shopped at Costco).
Since no one in the store was willing to offer assistance, the good shepherd of Discovery Church snapped a photograph of the Bible and tweeted it to his flock.
“People are pretty shocked and upset,” he told me. “We are supposed to be living in an era of tolerance, but what Costco did doesn’t seem too tolerant.”
I doubt they would label the Koran as fiction, Pastor Kaltenbach said. Heaven help us if they did.
“If they don’t believe in the Bible, that’s fine – but at least label it as ‘religion’ as some bookstores do, or ‘inspiration’,” he said.
So does the warehouse store that sells laundry detergent by the gallon have a problem with the Word of God?
I called Costco headquarters in Issaquah, Wash. hoping to get answers. The nice lady who answered the phone told me she was aware of the issue and chalked it up to a “human error at a warehouse.”
“It’s all fixed,” she said.
But actually, it’s not fixed – because there’s a boatload of Bibles in the Simi Valley store still marked as fiction.
At that point, the nice lady on the phone became not-so-nice and promptly informed me that Costco doesn’t talk to the press.
“Nothing to report,” she said curtly….
To read the entire story, click here.
God bless America before the evil takes over……
Check out your new “Holiday” ad in the mail from the United States Postal Service. It tells us “Don’t forget your holiday stamps!” and shows us stamps labeled Hannukkah, Kwanzaa, and then one with a gingerbread house with no label and no mention of Christmas. Christians, let’s make some noise!
Noel, I got the same USPS ad in the mail yesterday and saw just what you saw. The post office has always had religious stamps, so why not show it on their ad.
Please check your sources! Enough bad news. I also saw the Washington Times article, but had not read it yet when I saw your comment. I went to the USPS holiday stamps 2013 page online. There are 3 specifically Christmas stamps with the Madonna and Child or Holy Family. Here is the link: https://store.usps.com/store/browse/subcategory.jsp?categoryId=subcatS_S_HolidayStamps
At this point it should be well settled and without intrigue to anyone that the discrimination goes only one way, against Christianity. “Would they label the Koran as fiction?” Duh, of course not. Is this type of question intended to show some hypocrisy or something? The point is that, as Sly and The Family Stone said, “There’s a Revolution Going On” and we need to stop questioning whether the attacks on the Throne are anything other than part of that revolution. Only at that point can we begin to effectively respond. It’s long past the point that anybody should be legitimately confused.
Christianity and the Bible is all that matters to Satan ,that’s why the attacks on them will be relentless.
Oh, for goodness’ sake!!!!
How stupid can they be — the Bible should be listed as “spirituality and religion” or some other appropriate category.
Even crazier is the fact that I walked into a bookstore where Dan Brown’s novel (The Da Vinci Code) was listed under the category of “history.”
Some people are too dumb for words…..
They probably wouldn’t label the Koran as fiction, though I would.
I was given “The Catholic Faith & Family Bible” as a gift. The introductions to quite a few of the books in this Bible claim that the work is a “fictional story”. These include the books of Tobit, Esther, and Judith. The book of Daniel is said to be “instructive fiction”, and the book of Jonah is said to be “didactic fiction”. The book of Isaiah states, “Literary forms include,….fiction”. The explanation of Numbers is a follows: “many believe this book to be a legend, an imaginative and symbolic story that has a historical core but is told to teach lessons, not history”. The most curious of the claims is of the book of Ezekiel. “Many believe Ezekiel’s visions may have been due to mental illness.”
I have heard that due to rave reviews this Bible is now being printed in Spanish for Latin America.
Tracy,
That is why many are returning to the Duoay Rhiems version, and dumping the New American funny books and other so called modern versions!
May God have mercy on an amoral Amerika!
Viva Cristo Rey!
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher, Founding Director
Concerned Roman Catholics of America, Inc.
Truth is fiction, and fiction is truth! There is nothing holy about the Koran or its founder. The Bible is the inspired word of God. Because of the liberal media, and the godless people elected to run our society, is it no wonder that people no longer consider the Bible to be sacred? The Moslems WILL overtake our nation, and probably the world without having to fire a shot because of our laziness and stupidity. May God have mercy on us.
Father,
The late Fr. Paul Marx warned us of the impending Islamic disaster at many of his HLI Conferences!
May God have mercy on an amoral Amerika!
Viva Cristo Rey!
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher, Founding Director
Concerned Roman Catholics of America, Inc.
Mountain out of a molehill. Give Costco and the distributor a week to correct the mistakes. Then criticize them if they do not.
Yes, the Pastor was correct to point out the mistake. But to suggest Costco is are anti-religion??
I try not to shop at Costco as from what I have seen they give to Planned Parenthood. Many things are cheaper on sale at other stores, and one does not have to walk through a whole warehouse to get what one wants or buy huge quantities.