DEATH DENIAL AND CONSUMERISM

Modern man is drinking and drugging himself out of awareness, or he spends his time shopping, which is the same thing. As awareness calls for types of heroic dedication that his culture no longer provides for him, society contrives to help him forget… it can only be gone beyond with the creation of new heroisms that are basically matters of belief and will, dedication to a vision.

Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

Dedication to a shared vision is exactly what The Church of Stop Shopping is about. For this December issue of the EBF newsletter, we wanted to focus on the connection between over-consumption and death-denial. To do so, we are featuring this special group from New York City.

The Church of Stop Shopping, also known as the Earth Church, has performed all over the US as well as internationally, sometimes getting arrested in the process. The Reverend Billy character debuted in 1998, outside the Disney Store in Times Square, where he duct-taped Mickey Mouse to a cross, proclaimed Mickey Mouse to be the anti-Christ, and preached against consumerism. This launched a movement. Early performances took place with a small pickup choir, and the first official performance with the Stop Shopping choir was in 2000.

They have since conducted their performance activism at countless banks and corporations, at parks and sacred lands such as Standing Rock, for social movements such as Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, and Ferguson, as well as larger venues like Burning Man. They even opened for Neil Young in 2016, sharing the stage with Kurt Vonnegut and Joan Baez. Sometimes called “artivists,” they have been featured in countless articles and news stories.

In their words: “We are a radical performance community based in New York City, we come to the Choir from many different creative and activist backgrounds. We oppose the mono-culture in the broadest terms: consumerism, militarism, and capitalism’s attack on nature. We focus our energy on hyper local issues and global ones, and they often intersect. We confront and contend with racism and economic inequality within our own community and organize with the understanding that both are at the heart of nearly every issue. We work for the Earth.”

EBF staff Lyla Rothschild attended a choir rehearsal, and afterwards conducted an interview with Reverend Billy. We hope you enjoy this glimpse inside the Church of Stop Shopping.