Pastor Israel Ford stood in front of his LifeWorks Church congregation on Sunday with both of his wives and told the room the second marriage has already been going on for three years.
That is the announcement itself, from Sunday’s service. Ford co-founded LifeWorks Church in Wickliffe, outside Cleveland, with his first wife Lydia in 2009. On Sunday, Lydia did the introducing herself, bringing Minister Shakayla Ford up as her husband’s second wife and calling her a sister in marriage. The three have been in the arrangement for three years, kept private from the church until Sunday.
“I would like to introduce to the world my second wife, Shakayla Ford!!!”
Israel Ford, in his Facebook announcement
Ford put the announcement on Facebook himself and went straight at the pushback. He wrote that the teaching that a man should have one wife only is unbiblical, pointed to Exodus 21:10, and said the full sermon on it goes up later this week. He also said plainly that he knows some people will walk away over it.
“I have no plans to choose pleasing man over what God has revealed.”
Israel Ford
The other side of the argument showed up fast. Critics pointed to 1 Timothy 3:2, which says a church overseer must be the husband of one wife, and to the plain legal fact that polygamy is illegal in the United States, so whatever the church calls the arrangement, the state does not recognize a second marriage.
Ford says he would rather lose people than preach something he does not believe. Sunday was him finding out how many.
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