Jordan grew up in a Christian home in the deep south. From an early age he was troubled by the poverty and racism that afflicted the black community, even though blacks and whites served the same God. He decided to study Agriculture at the University of Georgia with the aim of helping poor, black sharecroppers.
During his years in college however, he discovered that the roots of poverty and injustice were not merely economic but spiritual as well. So he decided to go to seminary after completing his bachelors degree. He earned a Ph.D in Greek in 1938.
Following his marriage to Florence Kroeger, the Jordans wanted to find a way to combine an interest in agriculture and a passion for the Gospel of Jesus. They moved to Sumter County, Georgia to live out the teachings of Jesus in the midst of the poverty and racism of the rural south.
The Jordans envisioned a place where blacks and whites could live and work together in a spirit of partnership. They sensed a radical call to live as disciples of Jesus, and wanted to create a community that was committed to racial integration, nonviolence, a simplified lifestyle, sharing of possions and stewardship of the land and its resources. The blueprint for this community came straight out of the Bible in the Book of Acts.
This experiment was called Koinonia, from the Greek word for community. Koinonia Farm was developed as an interracial Christian community in Americus, Georgia. Jordan referred to the adventure as a "demonstration plot for the kingdom of God."
Clarence Jordan believed that the incarnation was the only effective method of evangelization. He said, "We haven't gotten anywhere until we see the Word become flesh." Jordan's understanding of the incarnation became a major theme of his life.
Here's an example of the incarnational theology of Clarence Jordan taken from "The Subsance of Faith and Other Cotton Patch Sermons."
What the virgin birth is trying to say to us is not that a man became divine, but that God Almighty took the initiative and established permanent residence on this earth!
Now we, today,…have reversed the incarnation. Instead of the Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us, we turn it around and we take a bit of flesh and deify it. We have deified Jesus and, thus, effectively rid ourselves of him even more than if we had crucified him. When God becomes a man, we don’t know what to do with him. If he will just stay God, like a God ought to be, then we can deal with him. We can sing songs to him if he’ll just stay God…. We can build our cathedrals to him. This is the bind we get in today. We reverse the action—from heaven to earth—and we turn it around and build it from earth to heaven. And salvation becomes something that we will attain someday, rather than God coming to earth to be among us. So we build churches, we set up great monuments to God and we reject him as a human being.
A church in Georgia just set up a big $25,000 granite fountain on its lawn, circulating water to the tune of 1,000 gallons a minute. Now that ought to be enough to satisfy any Baptist. But what on earth is a church doing taking God Almighty’s money in a time of great need like this and setting up a little old fountain on its lawn to bubble water around? I was thirsty…and you built me a fountain. We can handle God as long as he stays God. We can build him a fountain. But when he becomes a man we have to give him a cup of water. So the virgin birth is simply the great transcendent truth that God Almighty has come into the affairs of man and dwells among us.
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