"What was Christmas before shopping?"

This is the question Reverend Billy asks in his final sermon in What Would Jesus Buy?, the new documentary produced by Morgan Spurlock (Supersize Me) and directed by Rob VanAlkemade. It's certainly an important question, the one that hangs in the air through the full ninety minutes of the film. Some of the most poignant and effective moments in What Would Jesus Buy? come when older Americans talk about what the holidays were like when they were children. They all remember being happy despite not having mountains of presents to unwrap. How is it that we've come so far just to go nowhere?

Reverend Billy started the Church of Stop Shopping in the late '90s after seeing Times Square transformed into a giant shopping mall for tourists. Taking his inspiration from the vociferous curbside preachers who refused to leave the neighborhood, Billy, who was then working for a catering company, saw the mission that lay before him. He started his own Church, one devoted to spreading the gospel of responsible consumerism. Sins include credit card debt and not putting your money back into your own community. The devil's pitchfork has three major logos on each skewer: Walmart, Starbucks, and Disney.

The Church's presentation is equal parts schtick and performance art. As far as I can tell, Billy has no real credentials as a pastor (if there is a failing of What Would Jesus Buy?, it's that it skimps on the man's background), but his message is serious. Though he adopts the uniform and mannerisms of a cliché Christian preacher, anyone who fears sacrilege or any mocking of religion need not worry. The target here is the mind-set that tells us its okay to spend beyond our means as an expression of love, when really a hug would deliver the message much louder.

Twenty-eight shopping days before Christmas, Billy and his choir, along with his long-suffering wife and program director Savitri, board two buses and begin a cross-country trek to spread their message throughout the heartland. This tour is the spine of What Would Jesus Buy? and it takes them through small towns and major metropolises, past the Mall of America, Walmart HQ, and culminating on Christmas Day at Disneyland. At each stop, Billy risks arrest, and on one occasion, thanks to the monkeywrench of fate, the entire group risks their very lives. They descend on malls, sing in parking lots, and hold revivals, oftentimes befuddling as much as they are inspiring.

Amidst the demonstrations, VanAlkemade takes side trips to talk to families, some regular (father, mother, semi-spoiled child) and some not so (father, mother, very spoiled dog), to see how average folks deal with Christmas. He also interviews pastors, anthropological scholars, and media experts about the evolution of the yuletide. These segments all deal with the human element of the problem, of the good intentions gone wrong. The bad intentions are covered by labor activists who shed some light on the practices of the larger corporations and how they affect the communities here at home and abroad. They have chilly warnings for those of us too eager to keep up with the Joneses to ask the difficult questions.

As an object lesson, Billy stops at an independently owned clothing shop outside of Des Moines, Iowa, to buy a sweater. He and Savitri talk to the proprietor about the future of his trade when there is a Walmart twenty miles from his store in either direction. It's sad to hear that after 125 years of his family running the same business, he is not encouraging his sons to carry the torch. Later, when Billy and his flock hold a funeral for the American Dream and try to exorcise the ghost of Sam Walton from it, that man's words echoed in my mind. I also thought of his shop later in the documentary when, standing on Main Street U.S.A. in Disneyland, Billy cries out that there is no Main Street in the real U.S.A. that looks anywhere near as healthy as Walt's fake one.

Which I guess is mission accomplished for Billy and VanAlkemade and all of those involved in the production of What Would Jesus Buy? For all of the Church's outrageous antics, and for as funny and entertaining as the movie can be, it would all be a pointless effort if it didn't make us stop and think. Just earlier today I was trading e-mails with my sister about what to purchase my nephews and trying to plan who I would buy for and how much I would spend this year. Watching What Would Jesus Buy? and reflecting back on my planning and plotting, I have to admit, made me a little queasy. Even with making a budget, even with having a goal not to buy anything on credit, I was already going overboard, thinking I should buy friends additional gifts when one would suffice, thinking two items were necessary because the one thing I had found wasn't very expensive, despite being really good.

Combating this rising nausea, it occurred to me that it was too bad that What Would Jesus Buy? wasn't already on DVD, because I'd just buy one copy for everyone I know. This would not only solve my problem, but it would put me in line with the message the movie is selling and go a little way toward spreading the Word.

Oh, well, maybe next year.

Jamie S. Rich is a novelist and comic book writer. He is best known for his collaborations with Joelle Jones, including the hardboiled crime comic book You Have Killed Me, the challenging romance 12 Reasons Why I Love Her, and the 2007 prose novel Have You Seen the Horizon Lately?, for which Jones did the cover. All three were published by Oni Press. His most recent projects include the futuristic romance A Boy and a Girl with Natalie Nourigat; Archer Coe and the Thousand Natural Shocks, a loopy crime tale drawn by Dan Christensen; and the horror miniseries Madame Frankenstein, a collaboration with Megan Levens. Follow Rich's blog at Confessions123.com.