6 min read
A Sunday service at LifeWorks Church in Wickliffe, Ohio turned into the church moment of the week. Pastor Lydia Ford took the microphone and announced that her husband has a second wife.
Her husband is Prophet Israel T. Ford, the founder of the church. And Lydia was not confessing a scandal. She was making the introduction herself, in front of the whole congregation.
Major Takeaways
- An Ohio pastor and his first wife told their church on Sunday that he has a second wife, and that the family has lived this way for nearly three years.
- The first wife made the introduction herself and called the second wife her sister in marriage.
- Prophet Israel Ford says the teaching that a man should have only one wife is unbiblical, and he is standing on Exodus 21:10.
- Critics answer from the New Testament, where Paul calls for a church overseer to be the husband of one wife.
- Ohio law bans bigamy, and the civil standing of the second union remains unclear.
The Introduction Nobody Expected
“Prophet and I, we are living even right now in what we would call a polygynous marriage,” Lydia told the congregation. “My husband, our prophet, he has a second wife.”
“Y’all know her. Y’all love her. Y’all benefit from her ministry every week,” she said. “It is a pleasure of mine to introduce to y’all, prophet’s wife and my sister in marriage, Minister Shakayla.”
Shakayla Ford, born Shakayla Talley, has ministered at LifeWorks every week. What most members did not know is that she has also been part of the Ford household for nearly three years.
Israel told the church that in one more week, he and Shakayla will mark three years of marriage. Applause and cheers rose from parts of the room, while other faces showed pure shock.
The Second Wife Speaks for Herself
Shakayla stepped to the front with a laugh and named the moment out loud. “Cat’s out the bag. Elephants in the room,” she said.
“I have not been slighted, not one bit, and I have gained so much,” she told the church. “We are a family. We don’t walk around like individuals fighting and beefing.”
She also drew a clear line around her role beside Lydia. “I’m still Minister Shakayla. I’m not a pastor. I’m not here to take any light from Pastor Lydia,” she said.
She spoke up for other believers who live the same way in silence. Some, she said, have been kicked out of churches and left with nowhere to worship.
The Case Israel Ford Is Making
Israel founded LifeWorks Church in 2009 with Lydia at his side. The church gathers on Euclid Avenue in the Cleveland area, and its members call him Prophet.
After the service, he posted the video and put his defense in writing. “As a nation we have been taught that a man should have one wife only. This is unbiblical,” Ford wrote.
“I have no plans to choose pleasing man over what God has revealed,” he added. “People may not accept this and choose to disconnect, and that is ok.”
He pointed readers to Exodus 21:10. The verse speaks of a man who takes another wife and commands that the first wife lose nothing in food, clothing, or marital rights.
His reading also stands on the patriarchs. Abraham, Jacob, David, and Solomon all had more than one wife, and the Law of Moses regulated those households without banning them outright.
Ford told his followers that a full sermon on the teaching lands later this week. “This life will be over soon and we can all laugh about it in Heaven,” he wrote.
The Other Side of the Scripture Fight
Critics were ready with verses of their own. Many of them landed in his comment section within hours of the post.
Paul wrote that a church overseer must be “the husband of one wife” in 1 Timothy 3:2. He gave elders in the church the same standard in Titus 1:6.
Jesus pointed back further, to Genesis. In Matthew 19, he quoted the creation account, where a man cleaves to his wife and the two become one flesh.
Pressed on what Moses allowed, Jesus answered that some permissions came from the hardness of human hearts. “From the beginning it was not so,” he said.
The same Law of Moses also warned kings in Deuteronomy 17:17 against multiplying wives. Solomon, credited with hundreds of wives, became the cautionary tale when those wives turned his heart away.
And the plural homes in Genesis were rarely peaceful. Sarah and Hagar clashed. Leah and Rachel competed for years. Hannah endured a rival wife who provoked her in her pain.
What Ohio Law Says
Faith is one arena. The State of Ohio is another, and the two do not answer to each other.
State law flatly bans bigamy. Under the Ohio Revised Code, a married person may not marry another person or keep living with that person as a spouse inside the state.
Breaking that law is a first degree misdemeanor. It carries up to 180 days in jail and a fine of up to 1,000 dollars.
What remains unknown is the paper trail. No report has produced a civil marriage license for the second union, and no criminal case has been filed over the announcement.
As the family presents it, this is a polygynous marriage lived out inside the church. Whether the law ever tests that framing is a question nobody has answered yet.
Why Everybody Is Arguing About It
The clip has burned through Black social media for days. The argument is bigger than one church in the Cleveland suburbs.
For supporters, both women stood on that stage by choice and said so out loud. Consent, honesty, and Scripture form their defense, and they ask why a hidden arrangement would be any holier than an open one.
For critics, the issue is the office as much as the marriage. A prophet asking his flock to trust his revelation will be measured, in their reading, by the standard Paul set for the men who lead.
Others hear something older underneath it all. This is a tug of war between the faith handed down by tradition and the faith people read with their own eyes.
Ford has promised the full sermon this week. When it lands, this debate will get louder, not quieter.
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