Here’s a story that will offend many…..a newspaper in Tennessee considers the word “Christian” offensive.
The owners of a Christian bookstore in Knoxville, Tennessee were dumbfounded after the News Sentinel rejected their ad because it included an offensive word – “Christian.”
Lois McGinnis and her family own Cedar Springs Christian Store. They recently decided to close a second location of the store and wanted to advertize the news with an ad in the classified section of the newspaper, which is owned by Gannett.
The advertisement read: “Store closing sale – Cedar Springs Christian Store – Clinton Highway location – All merchandise, fixtures, slat walls must go. Sale through August 13.
But when McGinnis opened up the newspaper – the ad was nowhere to be found. When she contacted the paper she was told the ad did not run because it contained an offensive word — ‘Christian.’ She said the News Sentinel did not notify her in advance the ad had been rejected nor did they call to say they were refunding her money.
So the bookstore decided to tell their customers what happened in a very clever Facebook posting. It was simply titled, “Do you find the word ‘Christian’ offensive?”
The church-going folks of East Tennessee lit up the telephones – and that got the Knoxville News Sentinel’s attention.
As Todd Starnes of Fox News described it, the paper “offered up one heaping helping of an apology “for any misunderstanding about the News Sentinel stance on Christianity.”
Then they blamed the controversy on a “system failure.”
One Facebook reader responded, “Considering how liberal this paper is…I take the apology with a grain of salt,”