Sola Bookstore

I saw a Facebook ad for the “NTEB Bible Believers Bookstore” which the captions”St. Augustine’s ONLY Christian Bookstore!

I thought that can’t be correct. There is a Catholic book store at The Shrine of Our Lady of La Leche right next to the giant cross there.

Possibly the all-caps “ONLY” implies that this is one true and thus only Christian bookstore not run by heretics.

This really annoyed me the use of deceptive advertising for a Christian bookstore.

From their site: “Open 6 days a week, our King James only bookstore is a walk-in gospel outpost here in America’s oldest city of Saint Augustine, where the gospel of the grace of God is made available to the community in a powerful and hands-on way.”

So now I want to go there and troll them.

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“Can I buy a RSV” – no

“How about an ESV” – no

“An ASV” – no.

Well, how about a KJV that doesn’t have missing books?

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Noticeable on the images on the site is 1611 referring to to the original publishing date of the KJV, which included what is now called the Apocrypha.

So on their ad I asked them the question regarding whether they knew about The Shrine bookstore. Plus if they considered Catholics to be Christians.

The reply was:

Thank you for that info about the Shrine. The owner was a practicing catholic his whole life until about 30 years ago, when he got saved and became a Christian and believes the two are not in the same category. The shrine also does not come up when you search for Christian books stores in the area. Please feel free to stop by and see our store for yourself!

My most charitable interpretation is that they must be very poor researchers. A bare minimum Google search for “St. Augustine, Fl Christian bookstore” turns up The Shrine near the top of the list, and ironically their store does not show up with these search terms. Plus I noticed at least one other commenter before me mentioned The Shrine.

The owner was a practicing catholic his whole life until about 30 years ago, when he got saved and became a Christian and believes the two are not in the same category.

This appears to be a bit of an understatement as it seems that the apparent owner is Geoffrey Grider who is rather anti-Catholic to say the least.

Writing before about Pope Francis:

“Open up your Bible, find a blank spot next to John 5:43, take a pen and write “FULFILLED” in margin.”

They also have NTEC branded Chick Tracts. My parish has been blanketed at least twice this year with these tracts placed on cars.

“Of course, what they don’t know is that what they are encountering are not space aliens at all, they are the fallen angels connected with the Genesis 6 giants. Welcome back, we who believe the bible have been expecting your return.” NTEB, May 1, 2021.

Seems ligit.

So I was pretty annoyed about this Facebook advertisement, but now I see it as an opportunity to add Geoffrey Grider to my daily prayer list.