“Now all the “nigger-lovers” and Black people were gathering around Jesus to listen. And the White church people and Sun- day school teachers were raising Cain, saying, “This fellow associates with Black people and eats with them.” So, Jesus gave them this comparison.
– Luke 15: 1-3 Cotton Patch Bible Translation
As a lifelong political junkie, I have a long list of politicians that captured my admiration, but none to the degree that President Jimmy Carter did.
“Saint Jimmy Carter,” by my standards, brought the purest form of Christianity to the White House.
Over the next few weeks, we will regurgitate the same facts, figures, and fables about his life and legacy.
This 700-word attempt to familiarize you with the” Peanut Farmer” will center on one religious figure who significantly impacted his psyche.
Great presidents and saintly people are often the result of ministers who pour theological ethics and the purity of Jesus’ ministry into them. The same is true of every religion.
Martin Luther King sat at Benjamin Elijah Mays’ feet. Malcolm X gleaned Elijah Muhammad’s knowledge and wisdom. Barack Obama learned much of his ethos sitting on the opposite side of the lectern from Dr. Jeremiah Wright and his scholarly sermons.
But few, if any, know the story of Dr. Clarence Jordan, whose revolutionary social justice ministry marked the life of Jimmy Carter.
I learned of this radical theologian from Dr. Harry Wright, who preached regularly using Jordan’s “Cotton Patch” translation of several New Testament books.
Clarence Jordan had an under- graduate degree in agriculture and two Ph.D.s, one in the Greek New Testament.
He was so gifted that he could have chosen to do anything he wanted, but he chose to serve the poor.
In the 1940s, he founded a farm in Americus, Georgia, called the Koinonia Farm. It was a community for poor whites and poor Blacks.
As you might guess, such an idea did not go over well in the Deep South of the ‘40s. Much of the resistance came from good church people who followed segregation laws.
The town’s people tried every- thing to stop Clarence Jordan. They boycotted him, slashed his workers’ tires when they came to town and tried to derail his ministry for almost 15 years.
Finally, in 1954, the Ku Klux Klan had had enough of Clarence Jordan, so they decided to get rid of him once and for all.
The “hooded saints” came one night with guns and torches. They set fire to every building on Koinonia farm, except Clarence’s house. They riddled his house with bullets. The Klan, who are America’s original Terrorists, chased off all the families except one Black family, which refused to leave. They were committed to the cause of justice and freedom and remained.
Dr. Jordan had recognized the voices of many of the Klansmen; and of course, they were a gang of church folks. The same ilk and brand of church folk who used to hang Negroes for Sunday evening entertainment.
But some of God’s best work comes out of chaos. Dr. Jordan began translating and transcribing the Bible and it made him famous. His message extended far past the boundary lines of his farm.
They are rare and hard to find, but Clarence Jordan’s Cotton Patch version of the Gospels is bold and provocative.
The great Southern theologian did not live long enough to translate the entire Bible, but the chapters he did get to finish are outstanding.
Jordan, a White Southerner, took the New Testament from its historical axis in Nazareth and set it in rural Georgia to help the people of his day see themselves more clearly.
In fact, Dr. Martin Luther King and Dr. Jordan traded several letters, but they were constantly communicating.
They were always trying to mend each other and build each other up. Dr. King even sent money to help sustain the Koinonia farm.
The Klan burned Koinonia down, but Jordan went on to re- build and is known to many as the Father of Habitat for Humanity, among many other distinctions.
If you want to know where former President Jimmy Carter got his love and appreciation for all of humanity, look no further.
Jimmy learned to live and eat with people experiencing poverty. Jordan taught a level of empathy and compassion that shaped his presidency.
James Earl Carter Jr., in my opinion, was the only American president who could be considered for sainthood.
He was a saint to me!
A long-time Texas Metro News columnist, Dallas native Vincent L. Hall is an author, writer, award-winning writer, and a lifelong Drapetomaniac.
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