Clarence Jordan - The Inconvenient Gospel: A Southern Prophet Tackles War, Wealth, Race, and Religion

I can critique some of the things Clarence Jordan believed about the Bible, but I cannot critique the way he lived it. This collection of writings from a too-often-forgotten sage is a gift to all of us at a time when we need models of costly courage and conviction.

Russell Moore,Christianity Today

Clarence Jordan has you saying Amen one minute and thinking Im not sure about that the next. Regardless, he guarantees thoughtful interaction with his practical application of the Bible, which clearly comes from tending a farm. If Christians embraced at least some of his ideas, wed have a different effect on our world: less hypocrisy and more action.

Joel Salatin, Polyface Farm

Flannery OConner famously said that her native South was Christ-haunted. But for Clarence Jordan, Jesus was more than a ghost. He was a living presence in the poor and rejected, inviting us into beloved community as a real and practical alternative to the plantation economy. Jordans words are as relevant today as when he delivered them.

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, author, Revolution of Values

Few have lived, spoken, and written with such power, depth, and simplicity about Christian discipleship as Clarence Jordan did. His life is a testimony and a provocation to what Gods love for the whole world demands of us today. The Inconvenient Gospel is an essential book. It will inspire and challenge those willing to take its message to heart.

Norman Wirzba, Duke Divinity School

Dallas Lee said of Clarence Jordan, The promise of something wise or something funny or just something good to know danced in this mans eyes. That wisdom, that fun, that good dances in his words too. As a member of the koinonia Clarence cofounded, Ill use these pages as a guide, but anyone reading them can expect to be challenged and perhaps even changed.

Bren Dubay, director, Koinonia Farm

Clarence Jordan once wrote, What the poor need is not charity but capital, not caseworkers but coworkers. That insight gave birth to the affordable housing movement, surely the most far reaching of Clarences many gifts to the world. His clear insights in this book make the gospel come to life.

David Snell, president, The Fuller Center for Housing

Clarence Jordan cultivated a demonstration plot of Gods kingdom at Koinonia Farm. Now, with The Inconvenient Gospel, we have field notes from that experiment. Wise and often witty, Jordans words are a call to join Gods mission, even on our home soil where loving our enemies and our neighbors may be the same thing.

Ragan Sutterfield, author, Wendell Berry and the Given Life

In living a life of radical discipleship informed by the Sermon on the Mount, Clarence Jordan may be closest thing we have to an American Bonhoeffer. Im heartened by the publication of The Inconvenient Gospel, to introduce a new generation of readers to Jordans unique and prophetic voice.

Brian Zahnd, author, When Everythings on Fire

The Inconvenient Gospel

A Southern Prophet Tackles War, Wealth, Race, and Religion

Clarence Jordan

Edited by Frederick L. Downing

Published by Plough Publishing House

Walden, New York

Robertsbridge, England

Elsmore, Australia

www.plough.com

Plough produces books, a quarterly magazine, and Plough.com to encourage people and help them put their faith into action. We believe Jesus can transform the world and that his teachings and example apply to all aspects of life. At the same time, we seek common ground with all people regardless of their creed.

Plough is the publishing house of the Bruderhof, an international Christian community. The Bruderhof is a fellowship of families and singles practicing radical discipleship in the spirit of the first church in Jerusalem (Acts 2 and 4). Members devote their entire lives to serving God, one another, and their neighbors. They renounce private property and share everything. To learn more about the Bruderhofs faith, history, and daily life, see Bruderhof.com. (Views expressed by Plough authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Bruderhof.)

Copyright 2022 by Plough Publishing House

Clarence Jordan talks and writings copyright 2022 by Koinonia Farm.

Koinonia Farm still carries on Clarence Jordans vision today.

To learn more or contact the community, visit koinoniafarm.org.

Cover art copyright 2022 by Julie Lonneman.

Frontispiece photo courtesy of Koinonia Farm.

All rights reserved.

PRINT ISBN: 978-1-63608-028-4

EPUB ISBN: 978-1-63608-029-1

Printed in the United States of America

1. Frederick L. Downing
2. Starlette Thomas

Frederick L. Downing

IN 1942, at the height of World War II and more than a decade before the civil rights movement, a young pastor and farmer named Clarence Jordan founded Koinonia Farm, an interracial, pacifist communal experiment on depleted farmland in the Deep South, as a demonstration plot for the kingdom of God. People needed to see the good news lived out in a practical life of justice where black and white Christians ate and worked together in harmony with one another and the earth.

BORN ON July 29, 1912, in Talbotton, Georgia, Clarence Leonard Jordan grew up in a conservative, privileged home. His father, Jim Jordan, had developed several businesses and owned farmland; he was mayor of Talbotton and head of its bank. Clarences mother, Maude Jossey Jordan, had a great impact on his personal development. Her father had died in a gun accident, so she hated firearms and any form of fighting. People who knew her described her as particularly tenderhearted and sensitive. Like other white families in town, the couple raised their family in the Southern Baptist tradition.

On visits to the Jordans landholdings, Clarence and his brothers would play with the fieldworkers children. Clarence soon realized his playmates lived in dire poverty and had only a few months schooling per year because their parents depended on their help with fieldwork. When they did attend school, they had to walk several miles to a one-room schoolhouse staffed by a teacher with minimal education. Clarence wondered why they couldnt come to the big school in Talbotton. He also wondered about a Sunday school song that said, Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight. If that was true, why were black children treated so differently?

Soon after his twelfth birthday, Clarence made his profession of faith during the yearly August revival. A family acquaintance, Mr. MacDonald, attended the same church and sang in the choir. He was also warden of the Talbot County Jail. The jail was a couple hundred yards behind the Jordans home. At four oclock every morning, a gong sounded to rouse the chain gang. The jail had five or six metal-barred wagons for transporting these prisoners to various worksites under the surveillance of armed guards.