a view from under the pew
Published: Thursday, November 29th, 2007
Editor's note: Amos is a church mouse, who types by hopping on the computer keyboards, but he can't operate the capital shift, and he shuns punctuation marks — except hyphens and dashes.
what would jesus buy
boss it seems we re in
another — what would
jesus do — movement
you remember a few
years ago there was a
spinoff of the wwjd
phenomenon with the media
and car dealerships asking
the strange question —
what would jesus drive
well now it appears there s
a new controversial
docu-comedy about the
commercialization of
christmas the name of
the video is — what would
jesus buy — featuring a
strange character called
rev billy and his church of
stop shopping gospel choir
no boss i haven t seen it
yet but judging by the
reviews critiques and
outlandish comments it s
making quite a splash in
the world of merry capitalism
it debuted in a limited
number of theaters across
the country this past week
but it hasn t made the rounds
to bugtussle yet — and
probably won t
whatever you think of
rev billy dressed in a
pastoral white collar
caterer s jacket and bleached
hair he and his choir are on
a cross-country tour — a
mission for god question mark
here boss — to save christmas
from what he calls the
shopocalypse — pronounced
sho-paw-co-lips — which he
describes as the end of mankind
from consumerism
overconsumption and the fires
of eternal debt
through retail interventions
corporate exorcisms and some
old-fashioned preaching rev billy
reminds his audiences that we
have lost the true meaning
of christmas
the film is a journey into
the heart of america — from
exorcising the demons at the
wal-mart headquarters to taking
over the center stage at the
mall of america and then
ultimately heading to the
promised land — disneyland
the problem boss is rev billy
is not an ordained minister
and he doesn t even call
himself a christian one
reviewer notes he s an
actor-turned-activist who took
the reverend title to creatively
protest america s increasingly
excessive consumerism and
corporate homogeneity — with
starbucks wal-mart and disney
being his version of the
axis of evil
the songs may sound like
holy ghost-inspired jesus
tunes — complete with robes
swaying and hand raising —
but the lyrics are more about
slamming starbucks than
praising god one reviewer says
although the film s playfully
sacrilegious use of christian forms
and traditions may alienate
some of us in the church pew
underworld some critics have
praised rev billy and his crew
for bringing back the radical
aspect of christ clearing out
the moneychangers and some
old testament scholars have
pronounced his style
consistent with some of the
ancient prophets of israel
another thing boss i really
liked rev billy s response
to a reporter s question of
what would jesus buy in
our wacky world of
consumerism rev billy simply answered —
he would buy less — and
give more
amos
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