Wanna go to church? Tired of shopping? Go to “The Church of Stop Shopping.”

"The Church of Stop Shopping," eh? What is this church all about? I'm not sure yet. This "Church" got my renewed attention, thanks to a friend who sent me a link today. Among it's other activities, the Church is promoting a new movie ("The movie santa doesn't want you to see"). The title of the new movie? "What Would Jesus Buy?"

On Friday, November 16th, the Shopocalypse ends. It is on that date that Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping set out across America in two bio-diesel buses, confronting with their singing and preaching the shopping frenzy of America. Travel with our harmonizing activists, as they invade the Mall of America, cast spells on the front-door of Wal Mart headquarters in Bentonville, wind up a whirlwind in a tent revival in Texas and hurls them all the way to Disneyland and the final Day of Judgment: Christmas.
Here's a bit of information about the church itself:
The first job of a church is to save souls. Pulling out of the advertising/debt/waste cycle of Consumerism is our idea of deliverance. Our soul-saving mission work is dramatic rituals and plays inside retail environments. As you will see from the interventions that I sketch out below, in instruction manual form – our missionaries are sometimes completely invisible to management’s eye. And then sometimes the chaos and broad strokes — Inappropriate Behavior! Amen! – is the whole point and carries our message best.

Continue ReadingWanna go to church? Tired of shopping? Go to “The Church of Stop Shopping.”

New “Beware of Dogma” billboards springing up

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is decorating Madison, Wisconsin with "Beware of Dogma" billboards this month. What is the FFRF? The following mission statement is from the FFRF website: The history of Western civilization shows us that most social and moral progress has been brought about by persons free from religion.…

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The Journey: an outsider attends a different kind of church

People have all kinds of hobbies.  Some people like to knit.  Other people like to collect stamps.  I like to go to church while playing the role of “anthropologist.”

When I am thinking about visiting a church, my biggest decision is deciding what church to visit.  That was my decision three days ago. I had already been to a stern and humorless evangelical church.  The thing I remembered about that church was the scriptural quotation featured on the T-shirts of hundreds of the people attending: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.”  It was a quote from Proverbs 1:7.  I remember thinking “Of all the quotes they could’ve chosen from the Bible, this one is strange indeed.  Any good teacher knows that the best students are driven by natural curiosity and a good dose of skepticism, not by fear.”

Back to my task of choosing a church.  Last week, I just happened to be in the car listening to a fundamentalist A.M. radio station when I heard neocon talk show host Paul McGuire ranting about a new crop of churches designed for young people, churches that allegedly don’t spend enough time on the Bible but, instead, cater to the social needs of the congregation.  Maguire’s rant went on for several minutes, long enough for me to conclude that I simply had to go to one of these new hip churches to see for myself.

As it turns out, one of those new “emerging” churches is located about …

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Scientist Retracts "Origin of Life" Paper that he Wrote 52 Years Ago

Why would a scientist pull a paper that he had out there for over 50 years? Because he is embarrassed that Creationists are eagerly citing parts of it as proof that life cannot have arisen spontaneously. Here's the story. That is not because he objects to religion, he said... “Religion…

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Max Blumenthal again takes his video camera behind enemy lines

On October 20 and 21st, 2007, Blumenthal attended the Value Voters Summit, “a massive gathering hosted by the Colorado-based Christian right mega-ministry, Focus on the Family, and its Washington lobbying arm, the Family Research Council.” I admire Blumenthal’s work.  He sticks his nose under the tent to allow us to…

Continue ReadingMax Blumenthal again takes his video camera behind enemy lines