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With the economy in recession, with home prices falling, and gas and food prices rising, today we focus on consumption, particularly the one time of the year when consumption is at its highest – the holiday season. This past Christmas, intrepid film maker, Morgan Spurlock of Super-Size Me, presented a documentary that made many of us question our shopping habits: What Would Jesus Buy? featuring Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir.

Based in New York, the Reverend Billy reminds us how consumerism is overwhelming our lives. According to him, “the corporations want us to have experiences only through their products. Our neighborhoods, “commons” places like stoops and parks and streets and libraries, are disappearing into the corporatized world of big boxes and chain stores.”

What Would Jesus Buy? follows Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir as they go on a cross-country mission to save Christmas from the “Shopocalypse: the end of mankind from consumerism, over-consumption and the fires of eternal debt!” Newsweek calls it “a ferociously satirical and cynical take on consumer culture, pegged to America’s most sacred spending season.”