In a recent
post I mentioned a person whom most Catholics have not heard of and most
evangelicals have forgotten—Clarence Jordan.I thought I might have mentioned Jordan in a previous posting but
checking back, I don’t find that I did.Sometimes I find that I become to “Catholic” but not “catholic” enough
in the way I focus this blog.In any
event, Clarence Jordan (1912-69) was an Evangelical Protestant from
west-central Georgia who from his youth was conscious of the plight of the
African American and white sharecroppers in his State.To help with this problem he studied
agriculture at the University of Georgia but then was convinced that the
problem was not only a matter of economics but of spirituality.He attended the Southern Baptist Seminary in
Louisville and earned a Ph.D. in New Testament Greek.He never presented himself for ordination
but he remained a New Testament scholar throughout his life, able to translate
the scriptures on sight from their Greek original into contemporary American
English.In fact he produced the “Cotton
Patch” edition of many New Testament books—a paraphrase of the scriptures in
the language and culture of the American South.In his adaptation of the Christmas story Jesus is born not in a stable
but a garage, and laid not in a manger but an apple-crate.And at the end of the stories, Jesus is not
crucified at the instigation of the High Priest and Sanhedrin, but lynched at
the urgings of Baptist preachers.Explaining his “adaptation” of the story, Jordan wrote: “they crucified
him in Judea and they strung him up in Georgia with a noose tied to a pine
tree.”Of course Jordan was not the
first to take the story and give it this sort of a twist.Fyodor Dostoyevsky, in his novel The Brothers Karamazov, has Christ
brought for an interview before the Grand Inquisitor, representing the powers
of the Catholic Church, who condemns Christ to death.(In the end, however, the Inquisitor allows
Christ to leave rather than consigning him to the stake to which he had been
condemned.)
In 1942 Jordan
and his wife, Florence, along with another couple, Martin and Mable England, began
Koinonia Farms, an interracial commune modeled on the early Jerusalem Christian
community described in the fourth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles.This sparked a huge outrage among the locals
as it was against the law for blacks and whites to live within the same
household.The community was dedicated
to the principles of racial equality, ecological responsibility, common
ownership of possessions, and a rejection of violence.How un-Georgia could you get?It also turned out how un-Southern Baptist
could you get as according to theologian Stanley Hauerwas, Jordan was dis-fellowshipped
from the Convention.As the Civil Rights movement began to pick up
momentum, Koinonia Farms became the target of much violence but Jordan and his
friends remained committed to what they
saw as the path of Christian discipleship.Millard and Linda Fuller came to Kononia Farms in 1965 and Jordan’s
example and inspiration led them to the establishment of Habitat for Humanity. Another
American influenced by Jordan’s Christianity is President Jimmy Carter.Clarence
Jordan died in 1969.Consistent with his
evangelical life he was buried in a pine-box in an unmarked grave on the Farm
at a funeral attended by family and the neighboring poor.In many ways, Clarence was a Protestant Saint
Francis—a man whose love for the Gospel led him to follow Christ in his poverty
and his passion for the poor.He gives
us something to think about and reflect on this Christmas season.The baby came for a reason and the work he
began isn’t finished yet.Clarence took
up the work for the span of his years.There
is a need for others to take up that work today.
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