Sears Scandal: Posters Worthy of Boycott?

There is no question that the graphic posters which can be found being sold on Sears.com are offensive and should be removed. I don't believe any of us realized that we could go to a department store retail website and find that kind of adult material, images that are usually only found on websites that will leave your computer flickering with a disastrous virus. The company's PR response to the recent objections was to basically say that they seek to give customers what they want and don't feel that the posters fall outside the company guidelines.

This is extremely disappointing. However, it brings up a question that people tend to debate about: as Christians which companies and for which reasons should we choose to boycott?

Some people are willing to boycott the store until it has removed the products from the website. Others complain that such a conviction should then apply to any store that sells such material such as gas stations and many others. Others go so far as to say that search engines such as Google would also need to be banned because they can lead to those products as well with the right combination of search terms.

It's hard to decide when to apply restrictions based on personal convictions to merchants who engage in immoral activities. Most companies nowadays also have factories or buy from factories overseas who have their work completed through child labor. Others indirectly support abortion or discrimination in some way.

It would be nice as a body of Christ to be self-sufficient and not need to rely on stores of the world to sell food, clothing, etc. I would imagine that we would all need to be Amish to live that life though. I would agree that as Christians we need to make stands against companies so that they can be held accountable for their actions and have reason to correct them. I guess though that the only rule that can be applied is that when we are personally convicted by the Spirit to boycott that we are then to be obedient. In which case, it would seem that all of us will take part at some point in our lives considering there are so many causes to take action against.