Photo Credit: “Rev recovers from a near-shopping convulsion” by Michael Hart
If you’ve never heard of him let me introduce you to Reverend Billy. He oversees a flock called The Church of Stop Shopping and he preaches anti-consumerism. Recognizing the importance of environmentalism, Reverend Billy, who is an actor turned activist not a real reverend, has taken up another cause. He went from Hallelujah, to Change-alujah, to, now, Earthalujah!
If you’ve never seen him speak, check out the hilarious video below. He even became the subject of “Supersize Me” director Morgan Spurlock’s sophomore documentary, “What Would Jesus Buy?” Here’s the trailer.
EASTER BAPTISM: “You are born into a angry-drunk ecocide but we surround you with love. Gov’ts are reeling, corporations barricade their doors & send a million day-glow Trump bobble-heads out onto the tornado-twisted highways, but we know that you demand your full irreproducible life. We promise all the safety we have, all the happy laughter we have…” -Reverend Billy
The Church of Stop Shopping has evolved into a “post-religious church” and “radical performance community” that strives, all year round, “to complexify the moment of purchase, to snap people out their hypnosis and back into the mystery of being human.”
Reverend Billy and The Church of Earthalujah recently celebrated Easter with, not just any Easter eggs hunt but The Great Wikileaks Easter Egg Hunt.
In Union Square, New York City the church had “hundreds of sweet Wiki secrets hidden (with candy!) in brightly colored eggs, special musical offerings for Bradley Manning and Julian Assange and a rousing reading of the Wiki word.
Easter Sunday approaches. “Resurrection” is the radical appearance of Spring, of change, of rising up above death and the old ways. Have we ever needed a real resurrection more than at this moment in history, with the government-owning corporations having their way with public life? Each of us must now find that personal WikiLeaks, our own Arab Spring…
The Easter egg persists from the pagan rituals of Spring fertility. WikiLeaks has planted the seed of transparency that can restore an open democracy.”
At their services you can see Reverend Billy and the 35-voice Stop Shopping Gospel Choir which is part theater piece, part church service, part performance art.
The Church of Earthalujah schedule revbilly.com/events
Stream the service at revbilly.com/EarthalujahLive
revbilly.com
Reverend Billy Talen Facebook
Src: weblogs.baltimoresun.com
