From The Front Lines Of The Localujah Revolution!

I am a Wal-Mart employee

...in dire need of an exorcism. I have been with the company for over ten years and have watched our benefits and company policies crumble year after year in the name of profit. From the aggressive campaign to win the consumer over during times of recession and strife, to multiple layoffs weeks before the christmas season of desperate seasonal helpers, struggling to make ends meet. I personally have watched as positions have been eliminated for elderly associates in order to schedule them later and later. Respect for the individual and the open door policy exist in this world by name only. My testimony is a bit broken, but I have truths to tell. -Joe
 

The Rev Responds

Dear Joe,

We read your letter this morning in Brooklyn. It is very powerful and we know that you do have truths to tell. We will in our lifetime re-arrange our economy so that human values are not downsized for profits. We are still all getting on the same page, but more then ever Americans are ready to act. Do we have the faith? It starts by winning on the local level, and hundreds of Wal-Marts have been thrown out or not invited in - to communities aroused to its abuses. Change-a-lujah! -Rev

Dear Rev,

Congrats! May God bless you! Consumerism is a mask of Satan and you are ripping it apart in style.

We are based in Chennai India. India is also in the grip of consumerism and we need to do your act in India also. Could we link-up? Perhaps we need to do this in the local vernacular and rock the place....malls are creeping in every where and ruining the happiness of small enterprises.

We are also planning to offer a climate change consciousness certification program as a part of climate change management program to be done in industrialized nations and your unique method will surely reach the people and would like to associate in this regard also.

Our ethos is founded on the Gandhian principle of simple living and hight thinking.

yours truly,
Yaseva

Previously From The Mailbag...

Dear Rev Billy,

My husband and I worked in the corporate world making lots of money and we would go shopping all the time. We filled our home with stuff we never used or wore. We would buy stuff for hobbies we never had time for. Our quality time consisted of shopping together. After years of this, we felt empty. The holidays were more about stress than love and togetherness. We felt like there wasn't any meaning anymore.

On a business trip, I read an article about downshifting and we were hooked. We started to give away and donate all those useless items. We got rid of almost half our "stuff". We stopped shopping as much and really started to pay attention to where our stuff came from and our eco-footprint.

When the recession hit and we lost our high paying jobs, it was a GIFT. We're both poor full time college students now. We're working on getting our degrees so we can do what we really want to do in life vs doing whatever jobs will make the most money. Making money to buy "stuff" just isn't fulfilling enough anymore. We've decided that we can do a lot more with our lives with a whole heck of a lot less junk.

I saw your documentary on Netflix today and I just wanted you to know that even though we are non-Christian, I agree with your message and there are probably a lot of other people of other faiths out there who would also agree. It would be interesting to see you guys team up with a Jewish temple and an Islam mosque.

Keep preaching and keep getting the word out. What your church is doing is important in so many different ways. :)

Sincerely,
Liz

Hey Rev!

You are doing a really cool job! I walked by you the week before Christmas with a Macy's bag in Union Square. I kinda' hid out of worry that you'd shout me out. I think you just got there anyway cuz' it was the early afternoon. It was just one item and I should've gotten' the shouting anyway cuz' it's Macys. Thanks for fighting the good fight.

Thank you and Peace,
Javier

Hello Rev Billy and my greetings to the Choir...

I just have just finished watching the the WWJB movie. While I cannot honestly admit that viewing this film has changed my life, I can admit that it has reaffirmed some of my beliefs. I am so happy to know that groups like yours even exist. I thought that I was a freak. I made most of my Christmas present this year (and last), which was a truly weird concept to the rest of my family on the left coast. It felt truly original and sacrificial to do so, in the sense that I mean that it was worth the time spent creating them.

Please keep up doing what you are doing. Even if you reach only one soul in 10 thousand, you have reached that one soul and they are ready to listen.

Thank you all for doing the hard hard work. And please thank the choir for their great part in all of it. The message is never lost, but sometimes is is hard to deliver. Keep the faith my friends!

My best always,
Rayne

Dear Rev,

I really enjoyed your What Would Jesus Buy video. I would love to get a cd of all the songs, songs that aren't on the other cds like What Would Jesus Buy and a few others. The songs and the message is incredible but I would love to sit and play it all through the year and at Christmas.

Patrice

Hiya Rev!

Just watched the movie What Would Jesus Buy? and thought it was great!

My family this year did not buy presents we just visited friends and shared a lunch together as a family.

Please keep up your good work and god bless

Regards,
Shane

Dan in Kansas writes:

I just watched What Would Jesus Buy? and was thoroughly embraced by a warm and holy feeling.

I would like to inform you of my attempt to celebrate my first shopping-free Christmas. I have informed friends and family that I will only accept home-made gifts and will only be giving the same (art, music mixes, food preserves). Although I always try to give meaningful and creative gifts, I always seem to receive products made in third world countries.

In the movie Savitri voices frustration that it seems you are not making a difference. I assure you, you are! Perhaps you aren't getting through to the true shopaholics, but preaching to the choir is important. I often feel alienated from this society, as though I am the extremist, as if caring where a product is made and the effects of purchasing it have is irrational. After getting to know you all I feel as though I am part of a movement. A holy crusade of conscious consumerism!

Now I must preach to my mother, a queen shopaholic. The domino effect is at work here.

Keep up the holy crusade.

Love and blessings,
Dan

Alex in Colorado writes:

I just finished watching "What Would Jesus Buy". I have to commend you for your courage and taking a stand against injustices and other bad things that human beings have brought upon each other. It's unfortunate that good things, such as Christmas, get manipulated and twisted because of our greed. You are on the right path and what you are doing is making a difference. I'm sure there are times when it feels hopeless. Don't give up. You are our voice. You are making a difference. I thank you for your hard work in shedding light on this subject. I will do my part to spread the message. Keep up the fight! Hallelujah!

-Alex

Christmas 2009 from Allison in Pasadena, California

Dear Brother Billy,
Thank you for your good work, and great film What Would Jesus Buy? My gifts to family this year included two photographs I took and gifts in their names to World Vision: soccer balls, medicine for children, and mico loans to single mothers. There are few reminders in our current culture of the humanity of Christmas--your work is a relief in this Bosch-like vision of hell, brought to you by WalTargetDisneybucks.

I will help you spread your gospel of Life After Shopping. There will come a time when we will reject the artifical light of a megastores and step outside to the sunshine--leaving behind the bags, goods made by children, and things we don't need in the consumerist coffin.

Changealluah Brother, we will need it for 2010.
Sincerely,
Allison H.