First century christianity brought to the 21st century?

I have been reading Shane Claiborne's book The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical recently. It is my "back-pack" book, meaning that I carry around at school in case I am in a class with nothing to do (which is common in American high schools). Shane is what you might call a "liberal" Christian. He beliefs in living a type of monastic life and in, probably to the horror of the Religious Right, a type of redistribution of wealth (though it's not in the traditional political sense). His book is fascinating to me as someone who grew up in a very conservative tradition. The reason being that he is part of a Christian "movement" that I never thought would be possible in modern America. It is a way of living that tries to replicate the way that the early disciples lived in the book of Acts. For example, everyone puts all there money into a community pool and all money made by any individual goes to the community income. They try to live in a way in which money no longer holds value to them. I always thought that in the American economy this kind of thing would just plain never work, but here is, this small community in Pennsylvania. Now my mind now begs the questions: what would it be like if American Christianity or even Christianity world-wide would embrace this community and materialism-denying lifestyle? Is this is what God had in mind for Christianity even today? We do on one hand know that was his plan for the beginning of his church. Or maybe there is the reality that the Christian church needs to adapt the culture's system sometimes to make things work. Either way, Shane's story shows a functional attempt to go against the grain and do something different. I still haven't finished the book so these are only my preliminary thoughts and I will have to ponder this more and maybe do some research to truly come to a conclusion on what I should believe about all of this.