Reverend Billy
PublicAffairs
2006
214 pages
Reverend Billy (aka Billy Talen) is the figurehead of an anti-globalization activist group called The Church of Stop Shopping (at some point since 2006 it has been rechristened The Church of Life After Shopping). The Church is essentially a radical theater troupe with an activist focus on critiquing conspicuous consumption in America via performing a parody of Pentecostal revival meetings in public settings. The Church of Stop Shopping is one of a number of “culture jamming” activist groups that emerged from the mid-90s to the early 2000s to combine media theory, performance, and radical politics (c.f. The Yes Men for another example of such groups) into an overall strategy for direct action activism that looks back to the 1960s Yippies and Digger movements.
Talen’s group of pseudo-revival anti-capitalists is interesting for a number of reasons. While a number of religious groups are already heavily involved with social justice movements (c.f. some of the recent works by Marxo-Catholic literary theorist, Terry Eagleton, such as Reason, Faith and Revolution, also Goran Therborn discusses such activity in his short survey of global Marxism, From Marxism to Post-Marxism?), Talen, who takes on the appearance of a slick and savvy preacher when he performs, adopts the form of spiritual representation most closely associated with ‘televangelism’ and the American religious right. Talen subverts that religious form by investing it with anti-capitalist fervor but he also maintains the ecstatic immanence of the Pentecostal revival, projecting it onto the image-addicted, senses-deadened shopper of the heavily mediated contemporary urban environment.
What Would Jesus Buy?: Fabulous Prayers in the Face of the Shopocalypse appears to be a book of different aspects of the Church of Stop Shopping experience transposed into text. The first few chapters are, presumably, transcriptions of some of Reverend Billy’s sermons, replete with neologisms such as “Change-a-lujah!”, words that combine the ecstasy of gnostic exclamations with the soundbyte quality of political slogans. Thankfully, Billy included a glossary of these terms at the end of his book. Billy moves from his sermons into describing what motivates his group to act, and describes some of the lead-up to an action. The Church of Stop Shopping performs often in public or in private (commercial) spaces, and while their actions often appear spontaneous, Talen insinuates that there is careful planning involved when he alludes to having cues that he waits for before springing into full reverend mode. The book also describes a cross-country tour the Church went on, that brought them to locations such as the Wal-Mart head office and culminated in a visit to Disneyland. This tour is also covered in a 2007 documentary about the Church, also called What Would Jesus Buy? that is viewable on video.google.com and in segments on Youtube (here's part 1):
What Would Jesus Buy? is an odd book. It is a textual counterpart to a documentary film, and to a performance group, and naturally the experience of reading the book cannot be the same as crossing the path of a Reverend Billy performance action in person. Talen’s text is not exactly a strong critique of consumer culture but it is amusing relief from reading heavy anti-globalization texts like Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt’s near-500 page opus, Empire. The book is, however, useful to anyone conducting research on radical street theater. Furthermore, there is something interesting about the (fairly long) segment of the book that includes Talen’s responses to individuals who left messages or ‘confessions’ on the Church of Stop Shopping website. The impression is created that there are many people out there who do seek Talen’s counseling regarding their consumption habits, and Talen always obliges these seekers in his Reverend Billy voice. This recalls the criticism that Raymond Williams leveled against advertising as a kind of imagery that adopts the forms and representational modes of spiritual art while emptying out it spiritual content. It also recalls numerous suggestions made by cultural commentators that consumerism leaves people spiritually unfulfilled. While Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping (now Life after Shopping) may not be a real reverend and church, they ironically seem to return some form of spirituality to the lives of people made desolate by consumerism.
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