Church of Stop Shopping and Religious Activism

George González is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center and Assistant Professor of Religion and Culture at Baruch College, City University of New York (CUNY). He is the author of Shape-Shifting Capital: Spiritual Management, Critical Theory, and the Ethnographic Project.

"Led by Reverend Billy and Savitri D, the grassroots religious activist performance group known as the Church of Stop Shopping demonstrates ... the ways in which consumers are ritualized into accepting capitalism. González argues that consumers are coerced, not unlike Eve in the Garden of Eden, by the promises of immediate consumables ... A unique, scholarly take on fast capitalism." (Library Journal) "The first book that I've seen that pushes the critical study of religion and economy in such a reflexive, thoughtful direction. It both implicates contemporary Religious Studies in the neoliberal market logic that scholars often critique and offers a creative example of the new materially-minded directions that scholarship on religion might consider taking in light of the religious impact that consumer capitalism has on all of us in our everyday lives." - Richard J. Callahan Jr., author of Work and Faith in the Kentucky Coal Fields: Subject to Dust "Instructs on what is wrong with the economy called capitalism through the Stop Shopping Church prophecies. George González learned about this Shopocalyptic age from a radical community that performs religion as the pulpit for consumer criticism. Activism and religious adherence conjoin in this examination of dramaturgy as social indictment." - Kathryn Lofton, Yale University "In his incisive engagement with the decades-long activism of the Church of Stop Shopping, González weaves a transdisciplinary analysis of economies, religion, performance, and activism that promises to change each of these fields of study. González offers invaluable reflections on how artists, activists, and academics can hone our interconnectedness and our collaborations to stave off the end of the world even as we work to end the world we've come to know all too well." - Melissa M. Wilcox, author of Queer Nuns: Religion, Activism, and Serious Parody "For decades, the Church of Stop Shopping has challenged audiences to believe that we can make a better world than we have. In this brilliant book, Gonzalez channels the spirit of the Church's performance, inviting readers to stretch the limits of what seems necessary and possible in our neoliberal age. Drawing on rich theoretical material as well as insightful ethnographic work, Gonzalez uses the academic study of religion not only to demonstrate why Americans piously have ritualized consumer society's animating ideas and actions but also to amplify voices creatively working to transform the religion of everyday life." - Daniel Vaca, author of Evangelicals Incorporated: Books and the Business of Religion in America