Christians and Christian organizations should limit boycotts to those companies with whom they have already built a relationship. What?! You mean, Christians should only boycott their friends? Yes.
Why do Christians expect businesses to understand what they want if they haven’t first taken the time to meet the people at those organizations, introduce themselves, and explain their interests? Why hold business accountable for adhering to principles many of them know nothing about?
Imagine parenting that way. You would have no ongoing relationship with your child. You would never tell them about your self or what you want from them. In fact, your only contact would occur when they violated one of your rules, at which point you would swoop in and punish them.
Would the child know what to do or how to act? Would they love and respect the parent? Would they come home for Christmas or Thanksgiving or carry your photo in their wallet? Probably not. Yet this describes the relationship that manywell-intentioned Christian organizations have with businesses.
I think organizations like, Focus on the Family, The American Family Association, The Southern Baptists, and even your home church should immediately adopt a rule that unless they have first built a relationship with a company and told them the kind of behaviors that will win their support and loyalty, they have no right to withhold that support in the form of a boycott.
Christians would become known as relationship builders rather than angry protesters. Businesses would understand how many Christians there are, what they want, and how to please them. They would also be less likely to make mistakes that incur their wrath. That sounds like a better world to me. GS
