“America! America!”: Vanishing Time and Space in Clarence Jordan's
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“America! America!”: Vanishing Time and Space in Clarence Jordan’s “Things Needed for Our Peace,” Furman University, 1969 Luke D. Christie | Furman University Best known for his Cotton Patch version of the gospels and radical Christian community at Koinonia Farms, Clarence Jordan, a white Southern evangelical minister, translocated the events of scripture, physically mapping the life and times of Christ’s Jerusalem onto those of the 1960s American South. In so doing, Jordan aimed to implicate Southerners in the biblical narrative in a way that would not allow them to back away from the issues of racial and economic inequality plaguing the region at that time. In this paper, I track Jordan’s interweaving of past and present, analyzing the way in which he uses progressive form, metaphor, and dialogue to claim the sacred space and time of the gospel for the Civil Rights-era American South, and thereby endeavors to evoke a sense of divine responsibility to address the racial and economic inequality facing Southern communities. “You nitwits. You are able to decipher the scientific facts, how is it that then you cannot decipher the signs of the times?” Clarence Jordan, quoting Luke 12:56 in “Things Needed for Our Peace” Although he is paraphrasing Jesus Christ, inequalities plaguing the South. Such a task Clarence Jordan, a white Southern evangeli- called for a reinvigoration of the scriptures cal best known for his ministerial work to that would have no doubt been familiar to end racial and economic inequalities in the the Furman community, since Furman was Deep South, seems here not to be referring associated with the South Carolina Baptist to the “times” of the first century but rather Convention until 1992. Indeed, the words to the present moment: 1969, Furman in the epigraph above constitute Jordan’s University, “a little bit of artificial heaven” in own vernacular version of Luke 12:56, typi- Greenville, South Carolina, where Jordan cally translated: “You hypocrites! You know considered members of the predominately how to interpret the appearance of earth white student body to be at risk of becoming and sky, but why do you not know how to “[pirates] on the high seas of humanity” interpret the present time?” (ESV). Here and (Jordan 7). As he often did, Jordan turned throughout “Things Needed for Our Peace,” his invitation to participate in Furman’s Jordan’s colloquial translations blur the line Religion in Life lecture series into an oppor- between scriptural quotation and applica- tunity to make real for his audience the tion, collapsing the time and distance 20 | Young Scholars in Writing between the Jerusalem of Christ’s day and Civil Rights-era American South, and the United States of his own. thereby endeavors to evoke a sense of Scholars who have studied Jordan’s use divine responsibility to address the racial of vernacular in reading and interpreting and economic inequality facing Southern scripture typically claim its design was to communities like Greenville. Specifically, so implicate Southerners in the biblical I argue that Jordan does more than just narrative that they would not be able to contemporize the language of scripture. back away from the issues of racial and He alters its very substance, changing fun- economic inequality plaguing the region damental elements such as time period as a whole (Stricklin 177-78; Marsh 56; and locale and physically restaging first Snider 59; Coble 180). Joel Snider offers century events in Southern cities and with the most complete study of Jordan’s Southern actors; that is, he transmutes and preaching style, performing a heremeneu- translocates the New Testament, not sim- tical analysis of several of Jordan’s sermons. ply analogizing between past and present Snider is concerned both with the way in but actually mapping the life and times of which Jordan “[builds] an interpretive Christ onto the cultural and social bridge” from scripture to the present arrangements of the South. By considering moment and with the integrity of that a text not previously studied, I hope to bridge (45). Thus, he looks for evidence of contribute to what Houck and Dixon, dis- carefully studied biblical exegesis and cussing the rhetoric of the Civil Rights assesses the logicality of the modern exam- Movement, describe as a needed and ples used to explicate scripture in Jordan’s worthwhile effort to “[publish] ground- sermons. Snider’s assessment of Jordan’s breaking studies of heretofore unknown or exegetical accuracy, while useful for forgotten speeches,” affording in the pro- explaining Jordan’s theological moves, cess “a contemporary audience for those fails to fully explain the movement and speeches” (4). impact of Jordan’s rhetoric. Snider con- cludes that Jordan’s genius was his way of Jordan’s Perspective on Race contemporizing biblical texts so that they A unique perspective forged by several took on a new and fervent meaning for events in his early life and career shapes Southerners in the twentieth century, but Jordan’s rhetoric. Racial and economic this is as far as his argument goes. Snider inequality, central concerns in “Things and his contemporaries view Jordan’s Needed for Our Peace,” were deeply per- updates to the gospel narrative as sonal issues to Jordan. Born in Talbotton, allegorical and not literal; that is, they Georgia, in 1912, Jordan began question- underestimate the extent to which Jordan ing racial hierarchies at a young age. He literally changes the text when he translo- recognized a disparity between the mes- cates the events it describes. sage imparted by the classic children’s In this paper, I will track Jordan’s inter- hymn, “Jesus Loves All the Little Children,” weaving of past and present, analyzing the and the way he observed African American ways in which he uses progressive form, children treated (Marsh 58); he once ques- metaphor, and dialogue to claim the tioned his father’s chastisement of a young sacred space and time of the gospel for the African American deliveryman who came Christie | 21 to the front instead of to the side door of least one bombing. Jordan and his family their home (Marsh 58; Stricklin 167); and were dismissed from a Baptist church as he was troubled after learning that a mem- well as threatened by the Ku Klux Klan ber of the local Baptist congregation had (Stricklin 165). readily tortured an African American man Jordan acquired a “reputation as a power- serving in the local chain gang (Marsh 59; ful speaker,” popular on many college Stricklin 167-68). Jordan studied agriculture campuses, at conventions of Baptist denom- at the University of Georgia. At the end of inational groups and, at the height of his senior year, he accepted a call to ministry, Koinonia’s struggles, in the pages of national declining his ROTC commission due to a newsmagazines (Snider 12). Jordan posi- conviction that military service broke tioned himself as a social-change agent, Christ’s command to “Love your enemies” becoming one of the “many regional and (Marsh 60-61; Stricklin 168; Snider 10). local voices” who “helped to contextualize Jordan would draw on both his agricul- the national [Civil Rights] Movement for a tural and seminary training in establishing, local audience,” an important and impactful jointly with Martin England, Koinonia group of speakers often overshadowed by Farm, described by Marsh as an “experi- attention paid to national Civil Rights lead- ment in radical Christian community” (52). ers (Houck and Dixon 9) and downplayed Koinonia, located in Americus, Georgia in historical accounts of the Civil Rights (Sumter County), sought to combine a Movement that fail to appreciate the move- deep-seated belief in the “transforming ment for the great “theological drama” that power of the gospel” with a lived practice of it was (Marsh 6). The positive role played by Christ’s teachings, particularly his com- local white ministers like Jordan has been mands to help the needy regardless of race particularly overlooked, the result of a “his- or ethnicity and to love one’s neighbors as toriographical bias” that favors a narrative in oneself (Stricklin 163). Likely modeled after which black and white religious leaders were the first Christian community chronicled always depicted as being at odds with one in the biblical book of Acts, Koinonia oper- another (Houck and Dixon 10). Like other ated, more or less, as a commune wherein ministers, both black and white, Jordan all who lived and worked on the Farm were approached the social injustices he sought to treated equally. Jordan and England correct through a radical theological lens, employed black and white farmers indis- grounding his appeals in scripture and reli- criminately, paying them fair and equal gious doctrine. Civil Rights ministers, wages, and at mealtimes the entire working including Jordan, incorporated elements of crew sat around the same table. Members of the Judeo-Christian tradition variously, the community contributed their earnings using a diversity of specific appeals— to a common treasury, a pool which likely appeals to Christ’s life and ministry, to the helped Koinonia subsist through boycotts Apostle Paul’s thought, and to the Old by whites and white-owned businesses Testament narrative of a chosen people freed angered by the Farm’s purposeful rejection from slavery, to name a few (Houck and of dominant Southern ideologies reinforc- Dixon 11-12). ing segregation (Stricklin 164-65). Koinonia also came under gunfire and suffered at 22 | Young Scholars in Writing In the Local Arena: Civil Rights in such improvement efforts; at the other end, Greenville, S.C., c. 1969 white business elites, eager to reap the eco- In 1969, Jordan spoke at Furman University nomic advantages sure to result from an in Greenville, South Carolina, as a part of integrated black working class, sought to the university’s Religion in Life lecture series.