Martin Marty’s back page column in the current Christian Century describes the “sense of pathos about those who seek their place in the world by buying or renting a purse.”  He mentions name-brand handbags costing thousands of dollars that are purchased as status symbols.  The 25 Chanel bag sold for $25,000 a pop, and Neiman-Marcus had no difficulty unloading their inventory.  “For those who prefer to go slumming,” Marty reports, “or to look as if they are going slumming, there is a handbag called ‘hobo.’”  The prices range from $750 to $1,750. 

And yes, for those not willing to shell out outrageous sums for a handbag that will be passé in a few months, there are rentals available.  One coveted model can be carried about for a mere $6,010 per month for the rental.

I don’t even carry a wallet.

In the same magazine and elsewhere, I read about “Rev. Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping.”  They are featured in the film What Would Jesus Buy?    The good (and pretend) reverend is a person named Bill Talen, who traveled the country visiting stores like Target, Wal-Mart, the Disney Store (“Mickey Mouse is the Anti-Christ,” he declared), and Starbucks, making a spectacle of himself and the store, lamenting the effect of big chains on “Main Street America,” setting up a booth in which consumers can “confess your shopping sins,” “exorcising shopping demons,” interviewing independent shop owners, sharing disturbing facts of child labor used to produce much of our clothing and other items, and otherwise trying to convince consumers to avoid the “shopocalypse.”

As the Christian Century article reports, “The Church of Stop Shopping has fairly modest goals: it wants people to shop in ways that support the local economy; it wants businesses to be good for workers and not just for corporate shareholders; it wants just treatment of workers around the world.”

Rev. Billy wants people to have a “creative Christmas,” avoiding the “dread” that is part and parcel of the high expectations of gift giving imposed on people by themselves and others.

As I drove to work this morning, I passed a Baptist church with this message on its sign out front:  “What will you give Jesus for Christmas?”

Whatever it is, I doubt I can find it at the mall.