This "Greatest Story Ever Retold" is based on the book "The Cotton Patch Version of Matthew and John" in which the Gospel is presented in a setting of rural Georgia with country music songs, the final and perhaps best work of Harry Chapin.

The story of Koinonia Farm and Clarence Jordan is as important today as it was in 1971 when Dallas Lee first recorded the history, shortly after Jordan's death. This is a story of the enduring witness of Christian communal living that continues to influence the faithful around the world. Ê In 1942, Clarence and others set out to live as the early apostles, following Christ's teaching and sharing all things in common. Everyone was welcome. When word spread that a Negro farmhand shared their communal table, the consequences exploded fast and hard as the Ku Klux Klan came calling with bombs, gunfire, and boycott. Ê This edition concludes with a new afterword by director of Koinonia Farm Bren Dubay that highlights the continuity of Koinonia's originalÊmission today, despite all the challenges and changes since 1942.

Clarence Jordan seemed to be born with an ability to see things just a little bit differently than other people did--and sometimes that got him into trouble. Like his views on racial equality: they just weren't popular with many other White people in the Deep South of his day. Like his views on war and how to deal with violence and hatred. For Clarence, the Gospel was very clear about these issues. Moreover, he believed that Jesus's teachings were not just abstract principles but were meant to be applied directly to everyday life. That got him into trouble too, especially among certain church-going people. Along the way, Clarence became a progressive farmer, a sought-after preacher, a Greek scholar, an author, a precursor of the Civil Rights movement, and a family man. An irrepressible sense of humor enlivened all these aspects of his life. Today, Clarence Jordan is best known as the author of the Cotton Patch Gospels and as the inspiration for Habitat for Humanity. The story of the making of this extraordinary man is not so widely known. Cotton Patch Rebel tells that story.

The veil has been lifted. Discover the Gospel truth about the most myth-understood woman of the New Testament. Was Mary Magdalene a prostitute? An adulteress? The wife of Jesus? An ancient goddess? Liz Curtis Higgs, best-selling author of Bad Girls of the Bible and Really Bad Girls of the Bible, combines heartfelt contemporary fiction with extensive biblical research to bring to life the real Mary Magdalene of the Bible. With her own eyes, she saw him. With her own ears, she heard him. With her own hands, she touched him. Unveiling Mary Magdalene opens with the fictional journey of Mary Margaret Delaney, a madwoman adrift in modern Chicago. Her moving story, closely paralleling the biblical account, is followed by a verse-by-verse study of the first-century Mary Magdalene and her life-changing encounters with the Christ. “Liz has done it again! What hope and promise this will bring.” —Kay Arthur “The unforgettable portrait of a courageous woman.” —Rebecca St. James

The lushness of language and the landscape, wild contrasts, and pure storytelling magic abound in this anthology of Caribbean writing. Steeped in the tradition of fabulism, where the irrational and inexplicable coexist with the realities of daily life, the stories in this collection are infused with a vitality and freshness that most writing traditions have long ago lost. From spectral slaving ships to women who shed their skin at night to become owls, stories from writers such as Jamaica Kincaid, Marcia Douglas, Ian MacDonald, and Kamau Brathwaite pulse with rhythms, visions, and the tortured history of this spiritually rich region of the world.

When Clarence Jordan left seminary and started Koinonia Farm in Americus, Georgia, in the early 1940s, his living the biblical dream did not go unnoticed. Koinonia Farm was dedicated to pacifism when World War II raged, to racial equality in the southern heartland, and to community living in midst of American individualism. In this new interpretation and analysis of Clarence Jordan, Ann Louise Coble discovers a life and a community wholly connected to Jesus Christ, with a vision to create a "demonstration plot for the kingdom of God."