| In 1942, Clarence and Florence Jordan and Martin and Mabel England moved to a small farm in Sumter County, Georgia, and started an agricultural-based religious community. Clarence Jordan named it Koinonia Farm, based on the Biblical word for fellowship. Jordan, a New Testament scholar and Baptist minister, functioned as the unofficial leader. The community held ideals of racial reconciliation, pacifism, and communal living.;What was Jordan trying to do when he established Koinonia Farm? Because of the focus in the media on racial issues, many have assumed that Jordan was primarily intending to establish an interracial community and that his Christian faith was of secondary importance or perhaps of no real importance in the establishment of Koinonia Farm.;Tracy Elaine K'Meyer has written a comprehensive history of Koinonia Farm. Addressing the above question, K'Meyer argues that Koinonia Farm had three purposes: religion, race relations, and community. While all three of these are discussed, K'Meyer focuses on racial issues, Jordan's work for racial equality, and the link between Koinonia Farm and the civil rights movement. The result is that Koinonia Farm is seen as a project driven by racial issues.;In contrast to this view, I am arguing that Clarence Jordan was trying to flesh out his understanding of primitive Christianity by making Koinonia Farm what he called "a demonstration plot for the kingdom of God." Using an historical approach, I show that Jordan's agricultural experiment was theologically, rather than sociologically, politically or philosophically, driven. |
