Clarence Jordan
🗓️ Oct 29th
After spending a few semesters as an ROTC cadet, Clarence Jorden completed a degree in agricultural science and a PhD in Biblical Greek. He went on to become one of four founding members, with his wife and another couple, of Koinonia Farm in Americus, GA. Determined to be a “demonstration plot for the Kingdom of God,” the farm was controversial for violating racist customs in the American South. After weathering violence from the KKK, a boycott, and political pressure, Koinonia birthed Habitat for Humanity and several additional charitable organizations. On October 29, 1969 he died of a heart attack at his writing desk, in the process of translating the New Testament into the local vernacular.
Mandatory Fun:
Start with his Wikipedia page
Koinonia Farm has a biography of him.
Cotton Patch Gospel, Jordan’s (incomplete) version of the New Testament
Briars in the Cotton Patch, a documentary of the early years of Koinonia
