Big-box retailer Costco is apologizing to the public this week after a Christian pastor discovered copies of the Bible labelled as “fiction” in one of its U.S. stores.

Pastor Caleb Kaltenbach of Simi Valley, Calif. was shopping for a gift last Friday when he noticed that all of the Bibles in his local Costco’s book section were marked with tags that read “$14.99 Fiction.”

“Costco has Bibles for sale under the genre of fiction… hmmmm,” he tweeted, including a photo of one book.

The photo spread far and wide, stirring up quite a conversation within Kaltenbach’s parish and on social media. The pastor himself was more intrigued by the discovery than outraged, telling CBS Los Angeles “it’s caused a lot of controversy. It’s caused a lot of conversation, which I think conversation is good.”

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Costco itself issued an apology on Wednesday, writing in a statement “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.”

Some on Twitter are arguing that Costco should not have apologized for the error, but Kaltenbach himself was gracious about the response.

Lauren O’Neil
CBC News