BY SCOTT STIFFLER | The charismatic scourge of consumerism has an idea he wants to sell you on.
“Earth justice and human justice are, and need, to be the same thing,” asserts the man on the other end of the phone, who announces himself in the guise of a Bible salesman offering Old Testament brimstone and New Covenant wisdom that you can’t afford to ignore.
Empowered by righteous anger, prankster activism and a young daughter set to inherit this profit-before-people world, Reverend Billy brings his ministry — without invitation and sometimes resulting in jail time — to chain stores, bank lobbies, and corporate offices. You’ll also find him on picket lines, in protest marches, and at sites of environmental despoliation. His message varies (workers are suffering, species are disappearing, toxins are polluting, consumers are overspending), but his method is the same: aggressive satire and strength in numbers.
Beginning on November 15, Reverend Billy brings his deadly serious, laugh-out-loud brand of street theatre to the great indoors. That the six-week run takes place during the height of gift-giving season is no mere coincidence.
Although its mission continues to evolve, The Church of Stop Shopping is still firmly rooted in the notion that most folly visited upon this planet stems from mankind’s unchecked appetite for disposable pleasures. With a 30-member choir and a guitar/drum/keyboard combo filling the Joe’s Pub stage up to its brim, Reverend Billy’s 70-minute Sunday service (seen by this publication in previews) effectively distills the essence of his many causes.
“Our hot experiment,” says Reverend Billy, “puts out the idea that the issues we embrace integrate and become a simple human value in our fabulous worship. I have this incredible wave of punk gospel blowing through me. To be on stage with activists who sing, and singers who risk arrest, is a revelation.”
That risk is real, every time the Church takes their crusade against avarice and injustice into the public sphere. Stop Shopping Choir members — who recently retired their trademark robes in favor of extinction-themed honeybee chic — have been arrested “many times over the past fifteen years,” according to Church spokesperson Marnie Glickman, and have been subject to bodily harm more times than they care to count.
A member of the Choir met the business end of a Doorbuster stampede back in 2008 during a group pilgrimage to the Valley Stream, NJ Walmart, where they attempted to reason with the mob. Bargain-hunters didn’t get the joke, which is tough to do when you’re laser-focused on a mission. Happily, the Church doesn’t have a problem finding humor amidst chaos (which is downright infectious if you’re the right audience).
In 2014, over two dozen Church members found themselves in Ferguson, MO Walmart and Target stores — without incident, this time, but joined by “young African-Americans,” recalls Reverend Billy, who were “shouting ‘Hands Up, Don’t Shop.’ So we affirmed our decades-long fetish not only against consumerism, but what we call ‘Consumerracism.’ ”
From the minimum wage, to the revolving door between business and government, to the toxic glyphosates “banned in most European countries but still being sprayed here in our great liberal town,” to police forces meeting protesters while dressed in military-grade gear, Reverend Billy says we “keep finding consumerism is always there, in a big way.”
In the Reverend’s slogan-packed proselytizing, as well as in songs like “We Are The 99%,” all of these topics were given stage time at Joe’s Pub, along with a chance to declare victory on at least one front. The Nov. 8 preview came on the heels of Obama’s Keystone decision. Proof, Billy noted, that “Earth Culture stopped the pipeline.”
That made for a nice segue to the upbeat “Gratitude Song,” a golden oldie Church hymn that canonizes activist saints, willing martyrs, and innocent victims — but the majority of selections land on the side of active struggle rather than cautious optimism. “Get home safe” and “run for your life” are alternately hushed and urgent refrains in two early selections, causing Reverend Billy to note, “Even when the dogs don’t bark, they can bite your ass.”
“Make that anger righteous, not reckless,” a Choir member shouts. Good advice when Reverend Billy asks us to ponder both sides of the protest line: “Two institutions with pavement between us,” he says. “We’ve got to fill that pavement with bacteria and birds and nature.”
With the Choir clapping, music thumping, and Reverend Billy giving every syllable in “Earth-a-lu-jah!” its own sense of end times urgency, you don’t know whether to tap your toes or change the world. This is one church service that puts you back on the street convinced life is at its best when we strive to do both, preferably at the same time.
“Reverend Billy & The Stop Shopping Choir: The Earth Wants YOU!” plays through Dec. 20, Sundays at 2 p.m. (doors open at 1:30 p.m.), at Joe’s Pub (425 Lafayette St. btw. Astor Pl. & E. Fourth St.).
For tickets ($15, plus $12 food or two-drink minimum), visit joespub.publictheater.org or call 212-967-7555. Directed by Savitri D. with music direction by Nehemiah Luckett. Principle soloists: Laura Newman and Dragonfly (all songs composed by these four). Get info on Church activities, and their new “Resist Extinction” album, at revbilly.com.
