Clarence Jordon started a racially integrated communual farm in rural Georgia [near Americus] called Koinonia. In 1942 in rural Georgia this was about as radical an act as one could imagine. Here's one of my favourite Clarence stories:
I don’t think Jesus taught that everybody was a child of God. He did not teach that ALL men are brothers. He taught that all men COULD be brothers. And he didn’t teach that all people are children of God. He said all COULD be children of God. Now this is vital point, because there’s so much tommy-rot goin’ around today about the brotherhood of man.
And there’s a lot of tommy rot goin’ on about integration. Now, I know that the church of God does not respect color lines, but its aim is not integration. People say, “Well, you know, we have to learn to live together her on earch ‘cause you know heaven is integrated. Sure, Heaven’s integrated. Hell is too. They’re both integrated. Integration isn’t the difference between heaven and hell.
I went to see a Baptist deacon out our way, to see if he wouldn’t sell us some ground limestone to go on our land. Our land’s rather acid, and to grow clover or legumes you have to put about a ton of ground limestone on each acre. We wanted to plant about a hundred acres of clover. So we asked this Baptist deacon who had a limestone agency if he would spread about a hundred tons of limestone on our land. By that time, the violence of the mid-fifties had subsided. Nobody was shootin’ at us or blowin’ up our homes. We thought maybe this deacon would like to sell us a little lime.
So he said, “Well, Mr. Jordan, I appreciate you askin’ me and offerin’ me that business n’all like that. But to tell you the truth, I’m scared.”
I said, “Well, I’m scared too. But who are you scared of?”
“Well,” he said, “I’m scared to tell you who I’m scared of.”
“Man, you ARE scared! Well what are you scared of?”
“I’m scared that if I do business with you, they might blow up my trucks.”
And I said, “Yeah, I think they might. They are right handy with that dynamite. I wouldn’t doubt it at all. But in times past, Christians have been called upon to lose not only their businesses, but, if need be, their heads.”
“Yeah,” he said, “I read about that.”
“You don’t wanna be a part of it?”
“Nooo,” he said, “not me.”
“Well, I guess I’ll have to be going.” So I started to leave and he called me back.
He said, “Say, come here. Maybe we can work out some way for you to get that lime.”
And I thought, here’s a Christian who’s gonna be a man. He’s gonna stand up and be counted. He isn’t gonna be one of those kind that, when persecution arises, he withers away. Maybe he’s gonna stand up and bear a little fruit. Maybe a hundred tons of lime! I don’t know. So I went back in.
He said, “Uh, I think maybe I can sell you that lime if you’ll make a public statement that you folks no longer believe in integration, and have that statement printed in the Americus Times Recorder. That’s our little daily paper.
I said, “Now, my dear friend, we didn’t come in here to trade our souls. We came in here to buy lime. But you got us wrong. We never have from the beginning said we believe in integration.”
He said, “What you believe in?”
“All we ever said is that God is no respecter of persons, that there’s no white or black in the household of God.”
“Good God A’mighty, that’s integration, ain’t it?”
“No, sir, that isn’t integration,” I said, “That’s the nature of God. And I don’t see any point us puttin’ a little ad in the Americus paper that God ain’t what He used to be. In the first place, I don’t think God would even see it. He gets the Atlanta Journal. But assuming He did see it, I don’t think it’d make much impression on Him. Looky here. We haven’t been able to change even the Supreme Court, and I think God’s more bullheaded than those Supreme Court justices. And if we can’t change the Supreme Court justices, how do we ever change God? Maybe we just have to make up our minds to get along with God and cooperate with Him and let Him be what He is.”
Well, you know, we didn’t get our lime. Still haven’t got it. But God’s still no respecter of persons.
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