Is brainless consumerism killing our culture?

It's not unusual for religious leaders to find themselves at the center of controversy, after all, matters of faith are deeply felt. But the TODAY show's Natalie Morales recently met one very unusual pastor, who has managed to make a lot of waves, even without ever preaching about God. Reverend Billy (the creation of actor and activist Bill Talen) is the ringleader of the "Church of Stop Shopping." And his revival tour across America is the subject of the upcoming Morgan Spurlock film "What Would Jesus Buy?," his first movie since the national hit "Super Size Me!" Here's an excerpt of the companion book to the movie, "What Would Jesus Buy?":

Retail interventions
The first job of a church is to save souls. And pulling out of the advertising/debt/waste cycle of consumerism is our idea of deliverance. Much of our soul-saving mission work consists of dramatic rituals and plays inside retail environments. Our missionaries are sometimes disguised as consumers — “invisible” to management’s eye. At other times our Nonviolent Disobedient Performances inside the retail environment, the chaos and broad strokes — the Inappropriate Behavior! Amen! — carries our message best. The interventions that follow, developed over the last ten years, are some of our favorites.

As your new church prepares to Stop the Shopping of the citizenry, as you become a Sacred Spy of the Shopocalypse, it is worth asking yourself a few questions.

Who’s your Devil? Whether it’s a big box or chain store, or a nuke plant on a fault line: This is your “charged stage.” The consumers are the souls that must be saved. (But never forget: WE ARE ALL SINNERS.) When the consumers come into view, browsing or walking up the street, they will see your church performing inside, or Oddly near, the Devil’s logo. We must not be naïve about how powerful the multinationals are in the ordinary matter of BUY THIS. The consumers, upon seeing the imagery of the product or corporation, often immediately have memories, fantasies, anticipations.

This is Product Sex, and it is sinning of a very well-defended kind. It is our job to know what the existing props (the logo, celebrity spokesperson, corporate history, recent news items) are doing to the openness of those witnesses.

What are they thinking? Could they be open to asking a new question or two about the product before them?

Big Boxes and Boutiques
Our local chapter of the Church of Stop Shopping performs in any public setting where we can sing and preach — piers and docks, church rooftops, parks and boulevards. But there will also be “contested” space: the privatized spaces that wish to appear to be public space, but curb our Freedom of Speech.

There are two types, the big box and the chain store. These two have their contrasting seductions: the forces behind the fluorescing behemoth big box hope that the stores will glow and call to you with the promise of infinite products; while the chain stores, built to a more human scale, often try to blend in with the neighborhood, sometimes even imitating the local independent shops that they killed.

Retail Interventions in either of these environments can be intimate. We can whisper facts about labor slavery, the history of the company, the CEO’s stock options. But when a symbolic pageantry or public drama is staged for visual effect, then the two stages are very different. Big Box stores throw everything into the middle distance quickly. Your observers will generally be in cars or behind carts. In the “boutiques,” our church activists can sometimes withdraw to the sidewalk or street outside and continue to perform, with the curious customers following us out.

Victoria’s Secret and Starbucks are boutiques. Both have managed to depoliticize the public’s responses, and remain separate from the phrase “chain store.” Victoria’s Secret is still not associated in the public mind with clear-cutting virgin forests. Their million catalogs a day are mostly made of virgin timber. Starbucks still insists it has nothing to do with employing seven-year-olds. Starbucks routinely lies about the condition of its coffee worker families. Both companies have more exposure from their famous ads than from the damning research that watchdog groups post on websites. So with these smaller venues, direct education becomes more important. Whatever shocking bit of theater catches our audience’s interest, we still must prove our case in a more traditional way with clear and clean information sheets.

This is where a long retreat from a supermall can be an advantage. Once you give a shopper a sheet, security cannot intercede — they don’t pull the paper from the customer’s hands. So if we are escorted to the door and start walking across the parking lot, we might hand out information to a hundred people walking in from their cars. (It is fascinating to have later email conversations with people you encounter in the malls, and it helps spread the Word. Always make it easy for the shoppers to contact you.)

MORE FROM TODAY BOOKS: MISCELLANEOUS

Racing to save Earth’s most endangered species

Racing to save Earth’s most endangered species Jimmy Carter: How volunteering gave me joy ‘K2’: Anatomy of a deadly climbing expedition R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Where has it gone? What do Americans really want? TV and sex Life lessons from childhood cancer survivors ‘Our Boys’ is a happier ‘Friday Night Lights’ How to assess your self-worth Two brothers, 12 months, one filmmaking dream No such thing as virginity, author says   Add Today Books: Miscellaneous headlines to your news reader: