Political satire troupe takes on mountaintop removal

 July 21, 2010 · Rev. Billy and the Church of Life After Shopping will perform “The Coal River Revival." Their performance comes with an agenda: to reduce consumption in general and end mountaintop removal mining.
Bill Talen, also known as Reverend Billy, is on a mission – perhaps not one from God -- but a mission nonetheless.

“We invented a kind of church that is … some people might call post-religious. It’s not involved with organized religion. The people in the life after shopping church are from many different faith backgrounds, but we have in common this belief, that if we slow down our consuming, something spiritual happens in our souls. Amen?”

He spreads this message by taking on the role of an evangelical preacher and employing a Gospel choir.

“Preaching,” he says, “is an American vocal form, it’s like the blues, it’s like the auctioneers. It’s a wonderful way to communicate. It’s talking and singing at the same time.”

Talen is known as a performance artist and an activist, and it’s hard to separate his social message from his art.

He says people wonder, “Is that the arts? Is that the church? Is that politics?”

According to Talen, a good performance eliminates those boundaries, “When we’re having a good show, if we’re on fire, then we’re all three of those things at the same time. You can’t separate out one category, call us a label. We’re artistic, we’re political, we’re spiritual, all at once.”

Recently, Talen's group turned its attention to coal mining and mountaintop removal. Saturday night at the Culture Center Theater in Charleston, he is leading a public performance called “The Coal River Revival” to celebrate activists working in the region and to motivate his own congregation.

Of their visit, he says “We’re just coming to learn. We have Appalachian citizens in our choir, and we are just coming to West Virginia to be with the people who inspire us so much. And then we come back here, and there’s a lot to do in New York City.

One recent activity for the group in New York included placing mud from West Virginia mountains in bank lobbies as a symbolic gesture in an effort to stop the financing of mountaintop removal mining.