Reverend Billy

And the Stop Shopping Choir

Some friends were walking one day when they came upon a storefront labeled “Earth Church,” where they reported seeing a flamboyant middle-aged minister, apparently named “Reverend Billy,” preaching the Earth-worshipping, anti-consumerism gospel in a Steve Harvey suit.

Of course I didn’t believe them, so I decided to do some research. Some preliminary searches revealed that Earth Church (sometimes stylized as EARTHCHXRCH) is a meeting place and performance space for Reverend Billy and his “Stop Shopping Choir,” an environmental activism group that also sings.

Reverend Billy protesting tree stuff at East River Park

I had seen some of their literature around the East Village and decided to give them a visit.

I walked to Earth Church; it more closely resembled a Spirit Halloween store than any church I had ever seen.

Unfortunately, it seems that the Earth Church space shut down in November of 2024. But as luck would have it, I would soon discover another way to see Reverend Billy in action: he was putting on a live musical called Extinction at the Public Theater.

I quickly secured tickets and attended the first showing.

The theater, though small, was oddly packed. The Stop Shopping Choir sang a few songs to kick things off, but the one person I wanted to see most wasn’t on stage.

Suddenly, a spotlight illuminated a man standing in the back of the room who slowly started walking through the audience amid cheers and excited whispers of “that’s him! That’s Reverend Billy!”

He had gray hair and was wearing a gleaming white suit like Colonel Sanders. He threw his hands toward the heavens and shouted “Earthaluja!” like a southern Baptist minister. “Earthaluja, Amen!”

The audience went wild.

“It turns out,” he said into the microphone as he sauntered toward the stage, slowly looking around the room, “groups that risk arrest together sure can sing together! We risk arrest together at JP Morgan Chase all the time!”

More applause. He climbed up on stage.

“We protest at all the banks that fund fossil fuel production, but JP Morgan Chase is our favorite,” he explained.

---

According to Wikipedia Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir don’t only protest at JP Morgan Chase, but also visit other locations of interest including Trump Tower, Monsanto facilities, and Disney stores.

In fact, Reverend Billy began his protesting career in 1998 outside the Times Square Disney store where he was arrested multiple times after duct taping Mickey Mouse to a cross and proclaiming him to be the anti-christ.

Reverend Billy has racked up over 50 arrests in total, several of which occurred at various Starbucks locations where he and his followers tried to exorcise the demons of capitalism by “laying their hands on the cash registers, weeping, and harmonizing.” In 2002 Starbucks reportedly issued instructions to workers at New York City Starbucks locations entitled “What Should I do If Reverend Billy Is in My Store?”

After one particularly heated protest at JP Morgan Chase (after which Rev. Billy was promptly arrested), the bank manager gave a statement to police stating that Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir were "running about the bank while wearing frog masks … jumping on to the bank's furniture, running about the bank, and screaming loudly at others for a number of minutes." The manager said that he thought the bank was being robbed and that bank employees cried.

---

The performance continued; it wasn’t as much of a musical with a story or a plot as much as it was just the Stop Shopping Choir singing songs about nature and extinction with occasional shouts of “Earthalujah!” and parables from Rev. Billy.

Then Rev. Billy pulled out a wildcard. “We need to think about what we’re leaving for the children. I want to baptize a child in the Church of Stop Shopping today!”

The spotlight lit up a nervous-looking child in the audience.

“Everybody shout out what you want for this child!”

Audience members shouted things like “clean air and water,” “whales,” and “world peace.”

Rev. Billy loved “world peace.” He threw his hands in the air and shouted “Can I get a peacealujah?”

After the performance he flung open the doors to the theater and strode out to the lobby, crooning “Free books! Free books!”

The “books” in question were copies of “The Earthalujah Manifesto.”

The manifesto was a collection of ramblings in the style of Unabomber, comprising unbound pages in a manila envelope. Special care was taken, including the use of “Courier” font, to make it appear as though the manifesto were typed up in a shack in the woods.

So who is Reverend Billy? A hero? A menace? A cult leader? All of the above?

The first page of the Earthalujah Manifesto specifically states “We are not a cult,” so that answers the cult question.

I think Reverend Billy is just an impassioned performer masquerading as a preacher man hell-bent on saving the planet, even if he has to spend a little time in jail after terrifying some baristas or bank employees.

And while you won’t find me protesting at JP Morgan Chase in a frog mask, I’m glad someone out there hates fossil fuels and Mickey Mouse enough for the rest of us.

Keep it up, Reverend Billy. Earthalujah!