'Rev. Billy' to lead spiritual/political revival April 15

 

Skidmore College will present "Rev. Billy Preaches Stop Shopping Message," a spiritual/political revival led by the Rev. Billy and the Choir of the Church of Earthalujah at 3 p.m. Sunday, April 15, in Case Center. Admission is free and open to the public. 

"Rev. Billy" (the performance artist Bill Talen) is an anti-consumerist, pro-environmental activist who thinks humanity's materialism will sink the Earth. He uses humor, music, and a prophetic speaking ability to stir people to action. Based in New York City, Rev. Billy has performed/preached at many Occupy Wall Street events and most recently at OccupyLondon. He is the subject of a noted 2002 documentary titled Rev. Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping.

The Rev. Rick Chrisman, director of religious and spiritual life at Skidmore, explained why his office is sponsoring this event. "It's so hard to find an activist minister in today's churches that I'm willing to bring an actor who will impersonate one. Rev. Billy may be an actor but it's no act. He preaches a bona fide spiritual message?being a slave to possessions hurts not only you, it hurts the Earth. He sort of marries Jesus and Bill McKibben with an evangelical spirit, backed up by a big, lively choir. I like Rev. Billy because he unites inspiration (not religion) and politics, a necessary combination for the long-haul."

On his web site, Rev. Billy has post a statement of belief that includes the following: "We are a post-religious church. We hold 'services' wherever we can, in concert halls, theaters, churches, community centers, forests, fields, parking lots, mall atriums, and perhaps most importantly, inside stores, as close to the cash register as we can get, within spitting distance of the point of purchase.

"We sing, we dance, we preach, sometimes we perform small 'interventions', invisible plays, acts of ritual resistance. We exorcise cash registers and remythologize the retail environment, we illuminate the Devil. We make media and send it out around the world. We get hassled by security guards and sometimes get arrested.

"Above all we try to complexify the moment of purchase, to snap people out their hypnosis and back into the mystery of being human. We remind people that things come from somewhere, that products have a resource past, a labor past. Someone made It, and It is made of something, we trace the route a product took to get on the shelf, the life it might have when we throw it away. We animate the objects that surround us and in so doing we re-animate ourselves. We become citizens again."

His Skidmore visit is sponsored by the Office ofReligious and Spiritual Life Office, Student Government Association, Intercultural Center, and Department of Business and Management.

(The video accompanying this story was filmed in 2009 at the Sanctuary for Independent Media in Troy, N.Y.)