I first saw the performance artist Reverend Billy and his Church of Stop Shopping Choir in St Marks Church in New York in 2004.  

He gave a stem-winding, spelling binding performance to a standing room crowd that night, and his performance was better than any real preacher I've ever seen, and I've seen a few, because I have an appreciation for the skills of stem winding preachers, and on occasion like to slip in the back of a church to watch them at work. A few years back I even drove 700 miles to watch the singer Al Green preach at his church in Memphis, which was indeed worth the drive.

I believe that the soul of America today could benefit from having Reverend Billy on TV on Sunday mornings, even if he is a radical performance artist who looks like Elvis, rails against the evils of large corporations, and for his troubles manages to get arrested on a regular basis.

Like any good performance artist, Reverend Billy feeds off of the energy of the audience, and it was a shame that his appearance on Saturday was only witnessed by 60 or so folks.

I can only hope that somehow, someway Reverend Billy could be induced to come back to Miami and a venue worthy of his talents could be organized and promoted so that Miamians could see that in America there are people like Reverend Billy willing to do the Lord's work in a way that he might actually approve of.

Here are two links to learn more about Reverend Billy, (HERE HERE), and here are a couple videos of Reverend Billy in action.