reverend billy + the church of stop shopping

[david sumner]

In his thrift-store white suit, priest's collar, and blond pompadour, Reverend Billy of the Church of Stop Shopping looks more like Elvis than Billy Graham. He stands on the sidewalk in New York's Astor Place, where one Starbucks stands across the street from another, with a third branch down the block. It's what he calls "the Devil's Triangle."

Behind him, the Stop Shopping Gospel Choir, a 38-member crew dressed in red robes, holds signs above their heads—the Starbucks logo with a red line through it. "Take us to church, Reverend!" screams one.

Reverend Billy begins his sermon. "A number of us just returned from Kenya. The birthplace of civilization—the birthplace of coffee," he intones, playing his voice like a trombone. "We had the privilege of talking to Ethiopian coffee farmers. See, they preside over very special soil which makes the best coffee in the world."

The choir explodes in approval. "Amen, hallelujah!"

"The coffee farmers are starving," he continues, brow furrowing as he paces methodically back and forth on the sidewalk. "When they applied for the copyright to the names of their ancient coffees so they could lift themselves out of poverty, they were blocked by the devil." Steam rushes out of his mouth; he looks up theatrically at the sky. "The devil, in the form of a mermaid with no nipples."

"Lord help us," yells a blond choir member, appearing to faint.

Passersby by aren't sure what to think, but they stop and watch. A line of photographers and video cameras lends the spectacle an air of legitimacy. And within minutes a crowd of 100 people has gathered.

With tactics like these, Reverend Billy's crusade has slowly gained momentum over the span of a decade. But this year, progress seems to be coming much faster: Victoria's Secret announced in December that they will bow to the church's demand to cease using pulp from endangered rainforests in their catalogues. And Stop Shopping is the subject of What Would Jesus Buy? a new documentary by Morgan Spurlock, the man who sacrificed his body in Super Size Me. The film premieres at South By Southwest on March 11, and its production company is hoping for a nationwide release next December.

When I meet Reverend Billy, aka Bill Talen, before the Starbucks rally, he is at a farmers' market with his wife, Savitri D., the church's second-in-command. He reaches into his pocket and takes out a brown leather wallet to pay for a carton of eggs, a transaction I note with mild suspicion.

"We want to make a distinction between 'shopping' and buying things of value from someone you can talk to," Reverend Billy explains. He doesn't necessarily want you to grow your own food, hand-sew your clothes, or smell like a hippie. He just wants you to support local businesses over huge corporations.

"Multinationals dominate our neighborhoods, our lives, our government, the way we think, our ideas of happiness," says Reverend Billy. "We're trying to get people to stop running their lives by commodified behavior. Prosperity isn't what we've been told it is—it's laughing, singing, and dancing."

He swings into preacher mode, his voice welling up from deep in his belly. "We live in a sea of identical details. We have to resist temptation. But we all sin," he says.

Bill Talen's relationship with religion has always been complicated. He grew up in a Calvinist family in Minnesota. "Calvinists believe in predestination—that God decides before you're born whether you'll be spending eternity with the lord or gnashing your teeth in hellfire," he says. "I was 7 years old hearing this in Sunday school, and I'm going, 'But ... noooo.'"

A decade later, Talen was selling encyclopedias in New Orleans. "I came to this church and it was just rocking," he says. "I wandered in, stood in the front row and went nuts. All these grandmothers were fainting. I remember thinking, 'This is where God is.'"

But Talen didn't head straight to the nearest theological seminary. Instead, he was drawn to acting and began participating in small productions in San Francisco. After one show, an Episcopal minister named Sidney Lanier, who had created a theater group in his Times Square church, approached him with a suggestion. "You have a prophetic quality to your voice," said Lanier, "Why don't you investigate preaching?"

But Talen wasn't interested. "I'd been beat up so badly by right-wing Christians. I said, 'Let Saturday Night Live spoof preachers. It's not for me.'"

In 1995, after struggling to find his footing in San Francisco, Talen moved to New York. He had stayed in touch with Lanier, who offered him a job as the house manager of the American Place Theater, located inside St. Clement's Church. Talen began studying with Lanier and attending religious services. He warmed to the idea of using the preacher model for new types of messages and eventually wrote a play about a church service gone wild. He no longer remembers the name of the play, but he remembers that it was all about audience participation, much like Tony 'n Tina's Wedding, which was popular at the time. Reverend Billy was born.

One of the models for his character was Reverend C.L. Franklin, a Detroit preacher (and Aretha's father) who inspired many leaders of the Civil Rights era. Another was Jimmy Swaggart, the televanglist best known for being photographed with a prostitute in the '80s. "I call him my reverse mentor," says Reverend Billy.

It was the Giuliani era, and Times Square was transforming into a mega mall. Talen finally got fed up in 1997, and decided it was time to unleash Reverend Billy on the real world. His first mission: rushing the Disney Store. "I was so scared," he remembers, "I didn't think I'd get arrested."

Over the next few years, with the help of his wife and choir director James Solomon Benn, Talen began expanding the Church of Stop Shopping. The group kicked off new campaigns—against gentrification in general, but also against Wal-Mart and Starbucks. The latter famously sent out a memo in 2002 titled, "What Should I Do If Reverend Billy is in My Store?"

"After 9/11, people would start talking to me with this look in their eye," says Reverend Billy. "I realized that they wanted to be pastored to. My responsibility became more than to just entertain."

It's just a few hours before the Starbucks rally, and Reverend Billy and Savitri D. are driving over the Brooklyn Bridge in the 1983 Saab they received as a wedding gift. We talk about how the lines between reality and parody seem to be blurring all over the place. Sure The Daily Show started out as fake news, but it's a pretty good place to find out what happened on any given day.

"Our real leadership has been fake," says Reverend Billy. "The kind of person who has this haircut and wears this suit has been fake. I get to say, 'Let's make our way back to the real.'" He runs his hand through his hair, a mixture of peroxide tips, brown roots, and splashes of gray in his sideburns.

"Every major religion has been hijacked by its right wing," he says. "In the choir, we have Native Americans, Hindus, Catholics, Jews. We're all lapsed from organized religion, but we're still searching. People come to our church and shout 'Hallelujah!' for the first time in their lives."

Somewhat appropriately, the Church of Stop Shopping is housed in St. Mark's Church in the Bowery. They are an official non-profit with a budget of $125,000 a year, culled from ticket sales, donations, and grants. Church events can pack in 500 people. And after Morgan Spurlock's documentary is released nationally, that number will likely skyrocket.

It makes sense that Reverend Billy and Spurlock are drawn to each other—the thorn in the Mermaid's side and the David who got Goliath to stop super-sizing. "I lived in the East Village for years, and I'd see Reverend Billy performing on the street or being hauled out of Starbucks," explains Spurlock. "Then, two and a half years ago, I met Peter Hutchison, who he said he'd been shooting Reverend Billy. I saw the footage and thought that the way he deals with the issue, by giving it a little sense of humor, is really something great. I said, 'Sign me up.'"

What Would Jesus Buy? follows the church on a road trip from New York to California during the Christmas shopping frenzy in 2005, making stops at places like the Mall of America and Wal-Mart headquarters. Several members of the gospel choir quit their jobs to make the trek. "It's sort of the anti-Christmas Christmas movie," says Spurlock. "Kind of 'It's not such a wonderful life.'"

Their final destination: Christmas Day at Disneyland. "It was packed," says Savitri D. "They closed the window right in front of me and Billy. My heart stopped—we'd come all this way. But I knew there had to be a way to get in." They bought year-long Disney passes. "Giving Disney $500," laments Talen, "Now that's the ultimate sin."

In the middle of the Disneyland Christmas parade, Reverend Billy and the choir jumped in front of Mickey's float to sing a song called "What Would Jesus Buy?" Reverend Billy was arrested in the ruckus. (Disney revoked his yearly pass, too.)

A year after the Disneyland arrest, Reverend Billy takes a wooden podium out of the trunk of his Saab and slings it over his shoulder. It looks like he's carrying a cross as he marches purposefully toward Astor Place.

"I love Starbucks," says one woman, eyeing one of the anti-Starbucks signs.

"She's possessed," responds Reverend Billy.

We arrive at the Astor Place Cube and the choir begins to pass out flyers detailing the struggle of the Ethiopian coffee farmers. The press surrounds the Reverend, shoving recorders and cameras in his face. He offers each reporter a tightly-edited sound-bite—his deftness with the press has always been a driving force behind his success. "Are you going to perform?" one of the cameramen asks.

He steps behind the podium and begins his sermon, conjuring up some fire and brimstone. "See, that union-busting corporation Starbucks has a coffee called Ethiopia Sidamo," preaches the Reverend. "At the conclusion of this fabulous worship, we will walk across the street—to the valley of the shadow of death—and drive the demons out of that cash register." A police car pulls into view, lights flashing.

Reverend Billy leads the march across the street, the choir singing as they follow. "This town ain't no super/ This town ain't no super/ This town ain't no super maallll."

A 20-something man taps me on the shoulder and hands me a piece of paper. "Here is Starbucks' media statement," he says. I'd assumed the plainclothed man was just another observer. "At Starbucks, we support the recognition of the source of our coffees," reads the statement. "We look towards finding a solution that will protect, promote, and expand Ethiopian coffee exports, which in turn will provide increased incomes to Ethiopian farmers."

Reverend Billy pushes through Starbucks' double doors. The Stop Shopping Choir turns it up. "Push back/ Your latte's not my lover/ Push back/ I don't take slavery in my coffee." The customers stare, confused. Some whisper to each other, others laugh. The baristas in green aprons appear dumbfounded.

Several police officers stand at the counter, focusing intently on the Reverend as he walks to the front of the store. He puts one hand on a cash register, his other in the air, yelling, "Be gone evil!"

Two officers approach. Reverend Billy closes his eyes and ignores them. "Blow money to the Ethiopian coffee farmers," he says. The choir keeps singing.

The officers push Reverend Billy away from the register. He flops and then falls as the they shove him toward the door, his arms pinned. The choir follows, singing, "Push back/ I don't like slavery in my coffee."

"Boycott Starbucks!" he shouts, once forced outside. The police release him, but only for moment. Someone hands Reverend Billy a bullhorn. "We will be back every week to support the Ethiopian coffee farmers! Can I get a Change-elujah??"

The cops push through the crush of bodies. Reverend Billy puts his hands behind his back so they can cuff him, and with flashing lights, he's taken away. After the crowd disperses, a few reporters gather around Savitri D. who is picking up Billy's abandoned makeshift pulpit. "They won't keep him long," she says.

Three weeks later, Reverend Billy and Savitri D. are at home when they hear the news that Starbucks will "not oppose Ethiopia's efforts to obtain trademarks for its specialty coffees." The two aren't sure exactly what that means, but they think it might be a semi-victory. They call a rally for the following Sunday to thank Starbucks for backing down.

But Reverend Billy still has mixed feelings. "The fact is the coffee farmers are starving. This free trade economy doesn't get money to the people who do the work," he says. "I think we may be having some kind of an impact. Has it resulted in slowing down the Starbucks invasion? Possibly. Has it fed children in Ethiopia? Starbucks says they're increasing the amount of money they send. I've gone for years with less encouragement than that."

[Oliver's Army]

Dude.

If your jonseing for game points just tell me.

[david sumner]

dude-

not at all

but ill let you know if it comes to that

i thought that was an interesting article

didnt you?

-dude

[bassjones]

Interesting thing is Starbucks was one of the founders of the "Fair Trade" coffee movement... In reading on them in my business classes, they are widely considered one of the most ethical big corporations in the world. Not a fan and I much prefer the locals, but still...

Wal-Mart on the other hand can go financially bankrupt any time for all I care. They're already morally bankrupt.

[MynameisJenn]

I hate starbucks, sure they treat their employees well but they've sh*t on individuality and local shops. Starbucks mission:open two or three stores surrounding a few local shops, once they've cornered the market and the little guy goes down, move one of the stores out until the anihilation of local coffee shops

[jewlee138]

I read that article. Interesting stuff

[=^-..-^=]

I get the Fair Trade coffee at the co op, or sometimes from 3rd World Shoppe.

Drink the Ethiopian Dark, and you will know what angels drink in the morning.

Try the Guatemalan Dark and you will know hwt angels drink when they don't quite have the money for the Ethiopian Dark.