Clarence Jordan (July 29, 1912 – October 29, 1969) was an American farmer and New Testament Greek scholar, was the founder of Koinonia Farm, a small but influential religious community in southwest Georgia and the author of the Cotton Patch paraphrase of the New Testament. He was also instrumental in the founding of Habitat for Humanity. His (2nd) cousin, Hamilton Jordan, served as White House Chief of Staff during the Jimmy Carter administration. Life Early years Jordan was born in Talbotton, Georgia, as the seventh of ten children to James Weaver and Maude Josey Jordan, prominent citizens of that small town. From an early age the young Jordan was troubled by the racial and economic injustice that he perceived in his community. Hoping to improve the lot of sharecroppers through scientific farming techniques, Jordan enrolled in the University of Georgia, earning a degree in agriculture in 1933. During his college years, however, Jordan became convinced that the roots of poverty were spiritual as well as economic. This conviction led him to the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, from which he earned a Th.M. and a Ph.D. in the Greek New Testament in 1938. He was ordained as a Southern Baptist minister. While at seminary Jordan met Florence Kroeger, and the couple were soon married. Koinonia Farm In 1942, the Jordans and another couple, Martin and Mabel England, who had previously served as American Baptist missionaries, and their families moved to a 440-acre (1.8 km2) tract of land near Americus, Georgia, to create an interracial, Christian farming community. They called it Koinonia (κοινωνία), a word meaning communion or fellowship that in Acts 2:42 is applied to the earliest Christian community. The Koinonia partners bound themselves to the equality of all persons, rejection of violence, ecological stewardship, and common ownership of possessions. For several years the residents of Koinonia lived in relative peace alongside their Sumter County neighbors. But as the Civil Rights Movement progressed, white citizens of the area increasingly perceived Koinonia as a threat. In the 1950s and early 1960s, Koinonia became the target of a stifling economic boycott and repeated violence, including several bombings. When Jordan sought help from President Eisenhower, the federal government refused to intervene, instead referring the matter to the governor of Georgia. The governor Marvin Griffin, a staunch supporter of racial segregation, responded by ordering the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to investigate Koinonia's