The next time you hear about the Biblical injunction to share things communally (one way to read the book of Acts) you should point the speaker to the story of the Pilgrims whose memory we like to invoke this time of year.
In a article for The Washington Post Hugh Whelchel tells the serious, but also amusing, history of the efforts of the Pilgrims to implement the supposed Acts philosophy: it nearly led to the starvation and failure of the whole Pilgrims' project.
After three years of suffering, Gov. Bradford and his cohorts figured out that the idea doesn't produce and also found in other parts of the Bible the injunction that if you don't work you don't eat.
Words to live by.
Please pass the candied yams.
