Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping revives activism by staging it in new places. We hope activists' imaginations are sparked by our playful forays. The cash register exorcisms at Starbucks are one. The cell-phone operas at Disney. The shopping cart “Whirl” at Wal-Mart. The performances about global warming for motorists trapped in traffic jams – we call it “Traffic-jamming.”
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Weddings have within their skin, deep within them, down in the water of the shining well of "I do!" - when the two lovers are looking into one anothers' eyes - they see cities and continents they will cross and stay in together - years of this dreaming and sex and walking together those two are imagining when they make their promise. Weddings have the power in them that still gives us hope in a bleak time when we shout "Peace and Love!" and only half believe it and look around at others' eyes hoping someone else believes it more than we do, as we look for the faith that would save us all... SO good that Connecticut found its way to compassion and justice, after all these years, for the gay and lesbian lovers among us... gay marriage is the power and the glory! -rev

Don't buy some things. Following Jesus, Thoreau, Gandhi and Abbie Hoffman - don't shop. Give! Receive! Steal! Start a new economy...

Don't buy Wall Street's story. Don't buy McCain. Don't buy that the big business of America is big business. Start businesses that are personal, out of our garages, in our old computers, from our backyard gardens... Have shops that we own, where we like our own products, and where corporate policy is not what makes us nice to our customers.

It won't be easy. For many of us - Wal-Mart is the only store with safety pins or bar-b-que grills or generic sleeping pills within a hundred miles. We're trapped in the Wall Street-financed economy, the products from faraway sweatshops, shipped here in an emissions-intense way, with saturation advertising and toxic waste. It's been going on for a long time.

The change starts when two or three of us gather in the neighborhood and talk common sense. Of course, the Consumerized environment doesn't want us to find each other. Lots of places don't even have sidewalks anymore. But "you make the road by walking" and as we embody our new way of life, we will find each other. We'll agree not to buy some things.

Rev

We Americans are at some hellified turning point. Do you have the sensation that we're in a great slow motion that we're not noticing? Disappearing up our own arse with fabulous shopping – with the two $700 billion buys for the war and for that nature walk through The Valley Of The Shadow Of Debt.
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