Clarence Jordan And Bringing Jesus Alive

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 1:14

In 1942 Clarence Jordan and his wife, Florence, moved to a four hundred acre farm in Americus Georgia. Clarence had just received his PH.D from Southern Baptist Theological seminary and finished four years as a missionary. They called their farm Koinonia. The Greek word meaning fellowship. A name they used to identify their purpose and strongly connected to the first Christians portrayed in the Books of Acts. A Christian commune, committed to sharing their resources and money. 

To sustain their farm and community, they began raising peanuts. Clarence also had a degree in agriculture, which proved to be also valuable in creating an economically sustainable community. But Clarence did something very different than prevailing societal norms. He hired and recruited black and white to help maintain and live on the farm. Taking vastly underpaid sharecroppers and giving them a chance to earn a living wage for their efforts.  Long troubled by the racial and economic injustice of his region, he insisted in treating all people equally.

Well, this led to a substantial amount of backlash and Koinonia became viewed as a threat. There were bombings, boycotts and Clarence himself was dismissed as a Southern Baptist minister. 

The FBI investigated the farm as a communist stronghold. For a few years life was tough for those living on the farm. Cleverly, to work around the boycott, the farm shipped their peanuts to other parts of the country. And used the slogan, Help us ship the nuts out of Georgia. And it worked, the farm stayed self-sufficient.