Christians in History
Clarence Jordan (1912 – 1969)
Clarence Jordan was a farmer and Greek New Testament scholar from rural Georgia who dedicated his life and ministry to advocating for those living in poverty and for the equality of all people. In 1942, Clarence and his wife, Florence Jordan co-founded Koinonia Farm in Americus, Ga. Named Koinonia, after the Greek word for fellowship and joint participation, it was an interracial Christian farming community near Americus where members worked together for the common good and all persons were treated equally, intended to be a “demonstration plot for the Kingdom.” The farm had a “cow library,” loaning a milking cow to any of their neighbors unable to afford milk, believing that Christians had an obligation to work with and for the poor.
In 1956, two years after the Supreme Court ruled that segregation was unconstitutional, a quarter of the residents at Koinonia were Black. “A 1957 article in the Watsonville Register-Pajaronian recounted the aggression Koinonia faced: Banks, gas stations, feed stores, and most businesses in Americus boycotted the farm (one feed store defied the boycott — it was dynamited shortly after); State Farm and other companies canceled all of Koinonia’s insurance policies; at night, people fired pistols and rifles at Koinonia; twice Koinonia had its roadside farm stand dynamited, and other property was destroyed.”
Eventually, the violence subsided, and Clarence spent more time on his writing. Many of his speeches were transcribed and collected in books and recordings. His best-known work was Cotton Patch Gospel, which “translated” the New Testament into the 20th-century Southern. Cotton Patch has Paul writing to the Christians in Washington (Romans), Atlanta (Corinthians), and Selma (Thessalonians). Jesus is baptized in the Chattahoochee River.
The radical Southerner who dedicated his life to farming, sharing the gospel, and imploring his neighbors to actually follow Jesus, died as simply as he lived — buried in a wooden box used to ship coffins, in an unmarked grave, and wearing his overalls. Today, Koinonia continues as a working farm and Christian community.