Love is Winning: Clarence Jordan

What if you grew up in a place and time when they sang:

Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world

Red and yellow, black and white, They are precious in his sight –

Jesus loves the little children of the world.

But, right after church, the same people you had sung that song with were known to beat other human beings just because their skin was darker than theirs?  What if this was just seen to be ok and you were taught it was ok but after reading Jesus’ words and seeing the hypocrisy of singing these songs and treating other human beings like this you knew it was wrong?  What would you do?  How would you stand up for what was right? 

How would you show that love is winning?

Well, this is exactly the situation in which Clarence Jordan found himself.  Clarence decided enough was enough and that he was going to show his community that Jesus’ love is winning.  Check out this excerpt from a book I’ve read about this amazing man.  He and his community was shot at, their homes and barns were burned, and they were kicked-out of their churches, just because he believed that Jesus loved and created people of all colors equally.

Born and reared in Talbotton, Georgia, and son of a prosperous banking family, Clarence Jordan was an unlikely candidate to establish an inter-racial Christian commune outside of Americus, Georgia.  Jordan had been a Baptist from his youth; he sang that common children’s song:

Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world

Red and yellow, black and white, They are precious in his sight –

Jesus loves the little children of the world.

But he saw from an early age that even if Jesus was no respecter of color, the precious little children of Talbotton were not all loved alike.  In fact, the same hometown environment that encouraged his culturally acceptable profession of faith – himself having gone to the front of the church one Sunday to receive Jesus as Lord and Savior – likewise taught him that “a n—-r was a n—-r and must be kept in his place,” as Jordan wrote later in his journal.  Such irony struck Clarence with particular repulsiveness one evening:  he happened to hear the groans of an African-American acquaintance who was being tortured on the “Stretcher,” the Georgia jailer’s version of the antiquated rack.  “What added irony,” as James McClendon tells the story, “was the boy’s knowledge that the administering torturer was the same Warden McDonald who only hours earlier had been lustily singing ‘Love Lifted Me’ in the Baptists revival choir.”

In 1942, having received a PhD in Greek New Testament from Southern Baptists Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, Clarence set out with his wife to establish an interracial community based upon the Sermon on the Mount. The community was based upon nonviolence and a strict equality of ownership in all goods (taking Acts 2:44 as the basis for the practice).  But even more radical for his day, Jordan knew that since the division between Jew and Gentile had been broken down in the gospel, the same was certainly true of black and white.  So the community was open to all, regardless of skin color.

By the latter half of the 1950s, the rage of segregationists descended upon Koinonia Farm.  The opposition began with the institutional church, when a neighboring Baptist congregation excommunicated [kicked out!) Koinonia, given that “said members…have persisted in holding services where both white and colored attend together.”  The national press reported more violent forms of opposition, which began with threatening phone calls and then legal harassments, and shootings at most anything, alive or not – Koinonia buildings, houses, farm animals, and residents.  An almost complete economic boycott likewise threatened the existence of the community.

In the early fifties, so it is told, Clarence approached his brother Robert Jordan, who later became a state senator and justice of Georgia’s Supreme Court.  Clarence asked Robert to serve as legal representative of the Koinania community.  Robert responded:

“Clarence, I can’t do that.  You know my political aspirations.  Why, if I represented you, I might lose my job, my house, everything I’ve got.”

“We might lose everything too, Bob.”

“It’s different for you.”

“Why is it different?  I remember, it seems to me, that you and I joined the church on the same Sunday, as boys.  I expect when we came forward the preacher asked me about the same question he did you.  He asked me, ‘Do you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior?’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ What did you say?”

     “I follow Jesus, Clarence, up to a point.”

    “Could that point by any chance be–the cross?”

    “That’s right.  I follow him to the cross, but not on the cross.  I’m not getting myself crucified.”

    “Then I don’t believe you’re a disciple.  You’re an admirer of Jesus, but not a disciple of his.  I think you ought to go back to the church you belong to, and tell them you’re an admirer, not a disciple.”

    “Well now, if everyone who felt like I do did that, we wouldn’t have a church, would we?”

    “The question,” Clarence said, “is, ‘Do you have a church?”

So, what do you think?

Would you have the guts to stand up against friends, pastors, and family, risking your life, comfort, and security, to show love is winning?

After reading the conversation that Clarence had with his brother, what do you think Clarence meant when he told his brother that he was not a disciple of Jesus, but just an admirer?  What’s the difference?

Do you think you are a disciple or an admirer of Jesus?

 Click on this link to see a video of Clarence, his farm, and his beliefs:

http://www.tangle.com/view_video?viewkey=ddfb385ea76b26521ea4

Advertisement