Clarence Jordan

Clarence Jordan (1912-1969) and his wife Florence started an interracial farm called Koinonia in Southern Georgia in 1942. They were the target of white supremacist groups who terrorized them and organized a boycott of their farm products. Clarence turned to writing in the 1960s to address racism and translated the New Testament into the vernacular of the rural South. His translation was intended for poor blacks and white sharecroppers who couldn’t read the king’s English. In Jordan’s version, Jesus wasn’t born in Bethlehem but in Gainesville, Georgia. The Pharisees were good, white church folks and sinners, and tax collectors were the sons and daughters of slaves and poor white trash. Don’t let his homespun style fool you. Clarence put his PhD in the Greek New Testament to good use. Consider his retelling of Jesus’ Good Samaritan parable. A teacher of an adult Bible class asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus said, “A man was going from Atlanta to Albany, and some gangsters held him up. When they had robbed him of his wallet and brand-new suit, they beat him up and drove off in his car, leaving him unconscious on the shoulder of the highway. Now, it just so happened that a white preacher was going down that same highway. When he saw the fellow, he stepped on the gas and went scooting by. Shortly afterward, a white Gospel song leader came down the road, and when he saw what had happened, he too stepped on the gas. Then, a black man traveling that way came upon the fellow, and what he saw moved him to tears. He stopped and bound up his wounds as best he could, drew some water from his jug to wipe away the blood, and laid him on the back seat. He drove him to Albany, took him to the hospital, and said to the nurse, ‘You all take good care of this white man I found on the highway. Here’s the only two dollars I got, but you all keep account of what he owes, and if he can’t pay it, I’ll settle up with you when I make a pay-day.’ Now if you had been the man held up by the gangsters, which of these three—the white preacher, the white song leader, or the black man—would you consider your neighbor?” The teacher of the adult Bible class said, “Why, of course, the nig—I mean, er…well, er…the one who treated me kindly.” Jesus said, “Well then, you get going and start living like that!” We close with Clarence Jordan’s Cotton Patch version of the Lord’s Prayer: