I almost began this entry by saying, “What Would Jesus Buy follows a troop of charmingly savvy anarchist consumerism protesters masquerading as a traveling minister and his choir.” But that would be somewhat unfair. The Church of Stop Shopping isn’t masquerading as anything; it’s exactly what it says it is, and the medium is part of the message in a way that’s completely insane — yet oddly appropriate.

The long and short of it is this: One day Bill noticed that people buy too much useless shit, only to discard it promptly and then go out and buy more useless shit. This is bad. It wastes money and resources, and gives rise to giant warehouse chains like Wal-Mart while simultaneously driving down livable wages and rewarding corporate tendencies to prey on less industrialized nations. Therefore, like bored, stoned-on-advertising, mindless shopping zombies, consumers simultaneously bleed themselves dry through credit card debt and foster poverty at home and abroad.

Okay, maybe that’s the long of it. The short of it is this: Reverend Billy wants you to stop shopping. Specifically, he and his troop of be-robed back-up singers are coming at you with a Christmas message straight from heaven. Your religious holiday has been turned into a secular spectacle. It’s up to you to take it back.

If parody is made for mockery and satire strives for change, then the CoSS is somewhere on the far side of satire. It’s honest guerrilla activism — and I want to say that it frames its argument in spiritual guise, but again, that’s not quite right. Their message is a spiritual one: stay home, keep your money, and give your loved ones some love. Most of the CoSS meetings are held in churches, there’s no sarcastic denigration of Christianity or any other religion, and although the message is non-denominational, there’s more than merely the trappings of rogue televangelism at work.

In one of the documentary’s more poignant moments, the Rev, standing before his choir at the front of a church (where most of their meetings are held), reminds the congregation that Christmas is supposed to be about the birth of a baby who will grow up and teach us about peace. It’s not about stuffing the tree’s underskirt until you’ve driven the family into bankruptcy.

The sincerity surprised me even more than the ambient madness. “Reverend Billy” as a construct might be a mask contrived to make a statement, but the mask isn’t the one getting arrested repeatedly — the actor is. And he doesn’t seem to mind; if anything it lends his work credibility and demonstrates that he’s dead serious. He aggressively martyrs himself on the altar of private property in the name of making himself heard, and gradually, the message is getting out. I don’t know how if there’s a good way to quantify difference he makes, but I can appreciate the way the man has decided that he has a mouth, and he must scream.

The documentary itself is both moving and a little less effective than it might've been. It’s edited together in such a way that a very simple message (Buy less — and educate yourself about the things you do buy) becomes too fleshed out, in such a way that it loses a bit of its punchiness. In particular, I thought that there was an obvious message of hope and possibility that was hinted, but largely undeveloped in the film. It's one thing to tell people they need to do something; but if you want to attack the problem at the root, you've got to make some suggestions that address more than just the symptoms of a greater issue.

Reverend Billy seems to feel that the bulk of the problem is simple unawareness. People don’t know where their consumables come from, and they don’t understand the impact of their purchases, so they whip out their wallets with abandon. But simply informing the purchasers is only a fraction of the task. As WWJB demonstrates with intense and deliberate fervor, the vast bulk of marketing is aimed at people who are too young to own cards or draw an income that will support a lifestyle of frivolous expenditure. But there’s an insightful scene wherein three teenaged girls (fairly young ones, perhaps 13 to 15) are asked where their clothes came from. The girls start reading labels, and start asking questions. When the corporate producers of the products can’t answer, the girls go to the internet, and they learn about labor conditions in the third world countries noted on the back of their hipster tee shirts. Then they feel scared (they’re the same age as me!), and guilty (I’ve asked my parents to buy me these things!), and mad (I wouldn’t want to be treated that way!).

Because the great and amazing thing about kids is that many of them* come with an innate and intense desire to know that the world is fair — and where they realize it’s not, they see about trying to make it fair. And this is where Reverend Billy’s message has a big ol’ hole in it. The Church of Stop Shopping has seized a theatrical presentation that speaks to the adults with the pocketbooks, not to the greedy little objects of the marketing blitz.

What I’m trying to say is this: Reverend Billy’s church needs a children’s ministry. It won’t do him any good to attack Disney; this just makes him look like the villain to the primary demanders of Disney products. Instead — or rather, in addition to his present message — he needs a campaign that will explain in easily digestible terms why he objects to Disney as a corporate entity. Kids are smarter than you’d think. They can follow a logic train, even if that train looks like Thomas the Tank Engine, it’s covered in lead, and it was made in Sri Lanka.

So this is my message to the Church of Stop Shopping: invest in some puppets! Set up a separate Kindergarten session before the main course with the whole family in the sanctuary. Prime those little ones with the idea that money goes places and does things apart from (and beyond) bringing home that Disney Princess CD. All children everywhere are already born with the software plug-in that makes them ask, “Why?” over and over again until you want to stuff a pillow in their mouths. Put something important in front of them and make it a little interesting. They’ll ask about it. They’re kids; that’s what they do.

Good heavens, this has run long. At any rate, I suppose I should close on this note: it’s a good documentary, with a good message couched in strange but effective terms. Put the odd back in God, they say — and think twice before pulling out your purse. Only you can bring an end to the shopocalypse!

If you’d like to know more about the message, go visit their website here.