Erik Reece > Quotes

“The Shakers’ “communism,” which caused immediate suspicion among their neighbors, was actually based on the very first Christian church, sometimes called the Primitive Church, as articulated in Acts 2:44–45: “All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.” While I grew up in the Baptist Church, which I was compelled to attend at least twice a week, I never heard a preacher quote this passage. As Americans, we greatly prefer a version of Christianity that, while it might “care” for the poor, advocates no structural economic changes that might actually decrease levels of poverty in the United States. And”
― Erik Reece, Utopia Drive: A Road Trip Through America's Most Radical Idea

“Who is destroying the mountains of eastern Kentucky and West Virginia?...It isn't the coal companies. It's us...You did this. Okay, forget the guilt. How can we change that?”
― Erik Reece, Lost Mountain: A Year in the Vanishing Wilderness Radical Strip Mining and the Devastation of Appalachia