lHl

How a small,
idealistic religious
community in Ann
Arbor spawned a
sprawling empire
AND
of paranoia,
subjugation and
despair.
...
OF A 'dMired
k the words that ~7~j'
cH EA VEI\J LV . fist Jim Cavnar first spo e
~:e~~rd of God in 1967. .
.

EMPIRE
-x Q~ter Century in the Word of God
I!!!!I~NTIIE BEGINNING, TIIEALlrPOWERFULGOD who
created the universe reached down into an apartment
above the Campus Comers party store in Ann Arbor
and spoke to the world through the mouth ofa guitarist
It was the fall of 1967,a time when God was doing
stunning things in many prayer groups nationwide. God
was giving them special messages: and inspiring them
to pray ecstatically in strange languages, They were
_II forming a movement the charismatic renewal.
Ii The Ann Arbor guitarist, Jim Cavnar, was part of that
movement He was praying fervently one night with a dozen
friends when he was surprised by a sudden, urgent desire to
open his lips, and by the powerful sense that God was directing
his mouth to form a message. The others, hearing the change
in his voice, fell silent This is what God said:
"The work you have begun in Michigan will continue and will
spread to many other states ... Iwill raise up spiritual sons and
daughters armed for my work. A shining cross of my body ...
willbe raised up among you ... Iwill send people to you from all
across the nation to receive a message from you that they will
take back."
Cavnar was not quite sure what such a stunning and unex-
pected message meant But two of his closest friends in the
room that night - Ralph Martin and Steve Clark - thought
they knew what God was calling them to do.
Over the next two decades, Martin and Clark enlisted hun-
dreds of spiritual warriors to help them build up a powerful
Christian community they called the Word of God. Along the
way, God sent thousands of additional messages through the
mouths of their followers, nearly always blessing the work Mar-
tin and Clark had begun.
By the late 19708,the Word of God had become the kind of
shining symbol of spiritual power God had predicted in Cavnar's
first prophecy. Besides the 1,500 devout adult members in Ann
Arbor, Martin and Clark reached millions of charismatic Chris-
tians around the Worldthrough the tapes, training manuals and
books the conununity's publishing house was pumping out
As the Word of God grew, its most zealous members looked to
their spiritual leaders to advise them in their most intimate
choices: what careers they should follow,who they should mar-
ry, what houses they should buy, how to treat their spouses and
raise their children. .

BV DAVID CRUMM
In 1976, as a sign of commitment, men who became /ullmembers of the Wml of God began wearing
white cloth stoles draped around their shoulders at community gatherings. Wmten-
draped their heads with similar white cloth.

At left, Hbrd of God cofounder Steve Clark (far left)

prays with the Rev. Harold Cohen in 1973. Above, mem-
bers embrace at a community meeting in the late 19605..

Sept. 20, 1992 • Detroit Free Presr.

•• - .~

And when their heavenly empire began to Martin was young, but he was confident and
crumble, and key Word of God leaders sorrow- reassuring. He could talk about God performing
fully confessed they had been wn;>ngabout many miraculous deeds as casually as other men would
things, it was as if a terrifying earthquake had talk about DetroitTIgers games. He was married
begun to rumble beneath hundreds of house- to a slim, pretty woman, Anne, who appeared to
holds. be a model wife and enthusiastically helped care
"For 18years, I lived my life as if Iwere in a for the hundreds of guests Ralph dragged
submarine, submerged in the waters of our own through their house - including Ron and Liz
culture," says Kathy Javornisky, who joined the Ghormley.
Word of God in 1973 and left it last November. Clark, by contrast, adopted the life-style of a
"Andwhen the end came for me,lspent months medieval saint, organizing his own celibate reli-
in anguish - a very, very painful time. Ilooked gious order, called Servants of the Word, and liv-
in the mirror and asked so many questions: What ing for many years in virtual poverty with only a.
have Idone to myself over all these years?" handful of clothes and some books to call his
own.
GOD'S HOLY SPIRITMAYHAVE CALLEDTIlE "Weleaned on Steve and Ralph a lot ... a lot
Word of God into exis- more than we realized at
tence, as its members fer-
vently believed, but Ralph _
18
"For ·years, I lived my life the time," recalls Peter
WilliamsOn,who became a
=~c:es:~~:f
its chief architect ( , . .
Wordof God coordinator at
as if I were in a submarine, age 19and was assigned to
supervise members in sev-
Now in their early 50s, submerged in the waters of eral University of Michi-
they embody their callings. gan dormitories. "We
Martin's piercing slate- our own culture," says Kathy worked as a team, but they
blue eyes, silvery hair and really defined the universe
polished preaching serve Javornisky, who joined the of our consideration."
him well as one of the na-
tion's most popular Word of God in 1973. "And MARTIN AND CLARK
.Catholic TV evangelists. .had been perfectly poised
Clark's thinning hair and when the end came for me, I to ride this, crest-of the
spectacles seem perfectly charismatic renewal as it
cut for his role as a latter- 't Rlh··
day monastic and a reclu- spen m011LS ID an UIS -
g. h swept like a tidal wave --
a across the Catholic Church
~t:n::!~ ~:~:.Of the
But even in their 20s,
very, very painful time." after 1967.like Cavnar and
Gerry Rauch, the fourth
founder of the Word of
these slim, intense young men were charismatic God, they had been Catholic students at the Uni-
in the most common sense of the word. _ versity of Notre Dame in the early 1960s. Both
"It was a very wild scene around 1970,"recalls had experienced a profound spiritual awakening
Ron Ghormley, who was a ~year-old, straight- while attending a Cursillo, a system of short, in-
backed Lutheran in a business suit when he and tensive spiritual retreats that still is popular
his wife, Liz, first waded into a Word of God .throughout the Catholic Church.
prayer meeting in the basement of St Mary's Martin and Clark became so involved in the
Catholic Chapel. Cursillo thattheywere hired as paid consultants,
"It was a student scene with more hair than traveling across the country to train local Cursil-
you can imagine now, bib overalls and combat 10 leaders. Neither was satisfied with these sim-
boots or bare feet - and here Icame, this busi- ple retreats, however. So much was going wrong
nessman accustomed to wearing three-piece in the world: the Vietnam War;the Satanic spread
suits," Ghormley says. "But Iliked the environ- of Marxism; people everywhere rejecting all
ment - it was so charged, There was such a high forms of religion. God had to have a larger, more
level of expectation that something important powerful plan to change the world. ..
was going to happen as we prayed. And the rela- The two men saw dramatic changes in their
tionships were just great People were hugging own church. They welcomed the fact that for the
each other. I had never seen such affection first time in its history the Roman Catholic mass
among a group of people in my life. It was like a could be ce1ebratedlnEnglish. Butthey also saw
wliole new world was opening up in front of me." many dangerously secular elements- fromfem-
An accomplished civilengineer, Ghormley was inism to Marxism - eroding the pillars of the
a respected lay leader in his Lutheran Church- church they loved.Whatwas needed, Martin and
and more than 10 years older than Martin and Clark concluded, was a tightly knit Christian
Clark. "But I discovered I was a novice at what community, a force for renewal in the church and
they were doing," he recalls. "I dropped back and a bulwark against Satanic forces.
became like a student to these younger guys." Clark had made several abortive attempts to
 organize such a community be.
fore, but in 1967the climate was
more conducive than ever.That
was the year the largest church
in the world, the Roman
Catholic Church, crossed paths
with the one of the most power-
1u1spiritual forces in 20th-Cen-
tury America, the Protestant
Pentecostal movement. Martin
and Clark were among the van-
guard ofyoung Catholics stand-
ing at this historic crossroads,
eagerly channeling thePente-
costal forte into their church.
Since the turn 'of the centufy,
Pentecostals had been' promis-
ing that any Christlan could
• claim the same spiritual powers
the Bible says were unleashed
to Jesus',followerson Pentecost
the ability to speak and pray in
strange languages, and to re-
ceive special messages deliv-
ered directly by God's Holy
Spirit. By the late'60s, such
messages were being received
regularly by members of
the nascent Word.of God com-
munity.
"Yes, I have chosen to act
through you:' God reassured
Martin, Clark and their friends
one night, speaking through the;
mouth of Bruce Yocum, an ear-
ly Word of God recruit who be-
came a leading prophet. "I have
made"your voice like a trumpet
and it will De heard from one
end of the earth to the other. 1
willspeak through you to whole
nations." '
Yocum's messages were far
, from unique. Soon God was
speaking, at least occasionallg
through the mouths of almost
every member. Hundreds of the
messages were written down
and circulated through the com-
munity as divine revelations, of-
ten with little or no human iden-
tification. , ecstasy of its worship and the
God even named the commu-
nity one night in 1970 in a fa-
mous message uttered by
Yocum:"I ... call you the Word
of God, because you are my
word now to the whole face of
the earth .... I am going to pour
out upon you a spirit of power
and of grandeur and of glory, so
that all who see you will know
PHOTOGRAPH
that I am God, and that lam
.among you,"
This was a far more awesome
connection to God than most of
the group's recruits had ever
imagined. Their weekly wor-
ship became a dazzling display
of that spiritual power. Hun-
dreds crowded into their meet-
ings in the big hall at St.
Thomas Catholic Church in
Ann Arbor. Catholics always
were the majority: - but the
charismatic renewal spread
among mainline' Protestants as
well,
LIKE MOST OTHER RE-
cruits, Kathy Javornisky was
drawn to the Wordof Godby the
open affection of its members.
Going to a prayer meeting in the
early '70swas like rallying for a
University of Michigan home
football game. "Youwould start
walking down the street in Ann
Arbor and you'd see other
groups 'of students walking in
CONTINUED ON P. 12
- STEVEN R, !'HCKERSON
Sept. iO, 1992 •
 CONT. FROM P. 9

the same direction, then we'd

all converge,"Javornisky says.
"There was this tremendous
youthful zeal." _
Cavnar usually began the
- meetings with a high-energy
folk song glorifyingGod'spow-
er .-:..at first accompanied by
acoustic guitars and, in later
years, by an orchestra.Then he
would invite the crowd to un-
leash the full power of God's
Holy Spirit, and the meeting
would soar.
The' sound of their praise
seemed unearthly.Hundreds of
people would pray aloud, each
using different words. People
sang snatches ofa dozensongs,
, all at the same time, and beau-
tiful new melodies would
emerge. Rhythmic chants of
"Hallelujah! Glory to Jesus!
Thank you, Lord Jesus! Praise
your name!" would echo
through the hall.
Soon, English would no
longer suffice to express 'the .
spiritual yearnings and the Ron and Liz Ghormley (standing at right) join_other Hbrd o/God members at the July prayer meeting in J
'strange tongues would erupt ' I _ _

("Kee-ah-tah-mav-ray-Ioo. Kee- J9Tl, 10years after its found- Slowly a real community yoyng men tp 1,200a<ralt&-an
ah-tah-mah. Kee-ahhhl1hh-tah~ ing, the group's annual rev- fo[xued:-first of students at- 1,2~itiidren. -''
Kee-ahhhhhh-tahhhhhh, " enues from -publishingtolil - ;; tending th~university,and, lat- Most of the members were
chants one woman-inltJ;~.c-oni---$-~rirllli'on: They were selling er, of talented men who were organizedinto households. Stu-
mgofa1970prayerserViceasa _599,000 books and training schoolteachers, medical doc- dents living in dorms met for
chaos of other prayers, songs manuals annually, plus 78,400 tors, computer experts,engi- night prayers before bed. Sin-
and tongues roars around her). records, 159,418cassettes, and neers, musicians, artists, insur- gle people shared apartments
Then, abruptly, the din would 429,000songbooks.Their mag- ance and real estate agents, and that were carefully segregated
give way to silence, and a lone azine, called New Covenant,' grocers. Most of the Word of ' by sex, and married couples
worshiper's voice would enun- had become the mainjournalof God women married and usually had at least one single
ciate the newest message from the charismatic renewal with stayed at home, raising the Wordof Godmember assigned
God, clear and compellingas a 71,000subscribers. community's hundreds of.chil- to livewith.them.All members
church bell tollingat dawn. dren. had personal pastoral leaders
Moments later, the noise of JJ,.SEXCITEMENT AND EX- Even among male members, who met with them regularly to
praise woulderupt again.Some pectations skyrocketed in Ann the pursuit of wealth was sub- help guide their lives.
worshipers fell on their knees Arbor,peopleyieldedmore and jugated to spiritual goals. Word In 1976, as a sign of their
to pray; some clasped hands more of their individuallivesto of God leaders took no salaries deepening commitment, men
_ andformed smallcircles;some the larger mission of the com- _at first and, later, only modest who had become fullmembers
hugged. People would lifttheir munity. ones. Some Word of God men began wearing white cloth
smilingfacestowardthe ceiling "There was such a romantic, clustered with fellowmembers stoles draped around their
and gently wave their open idealistic character to what we in a number ofloca1companies. shoulders at community gath-
hands above their heads,.as if were doing and it was pro- A handful found jobs in firms erings. Women draped their
reverently stroking God's mov- foundly Christian," says Peter controlled by Domino's Pizza hairwith a similar white cloth.
ing spirit. Williamson. "I was very influ- ownerTom Monaghan. It was a The community called these
Thousands of visitors made enced by reading about st. comfortable environment for cloths "mantles and veils."
pilgrimages to AnnArbor from Francis of Assisi, so I gave up them, because Monaghan was Eventually,scores offamilies
aroundthe world,and nearly all my shoes and went barefoot a zealous Catholic himself, al- sold their houses or left apart-
of them wanted to carry back from May to October. My hair though he never joined the ments to purchase homes in
some glowing ember of this was long and parted in the mid- Wordof God. new Word of God neighbor-
spiritual fire. Wordof God pub- - dle with a leather headband In 10 years, Word of God hoods that sprang up around
lishing companies obliged. By around it." • membership swelledfrom four AnnArbor andYpsilanti.
PHOTOGRAPH - STEVEN R. NICKERSON
12 Detroit Free Press Magazine • Sept. 20, 1992
•...
TO' C;REATE THE PERFEGr_
newfainuies for the heavenly
empire, Word of God leaders
developed a strict code for
courtship and marriage. Single
people were enjoined from.dat-
ing until a' person's spiritual
counselor decided they were
ready to get married. "We
thought that in our society;dat-
ing was not an effective way to
find a good marriage partner,"
Cavnar says. "It often led to se-
rious problems - sexual im-
morality; broken relationships,
and other hardships." The sys- '
tern also reflected the Word of
God's Catholic majority.All sin-
gle people were urged to con-
sider making a vow of celibacy
and entering a religious order
or the priesthood.
Because she was a freshman
at U-M when she joined the
Word of God, Kathy Javornisky
was barred both from dating
and from marriage for several
years. Then, in late 1976,Marty
Javornisky, another member of

CONTINUED ON P. 14
 CONT. FROM P. 12
the Word of God community,
telephoned and asked her to
have dinner with him and some
others at his home one night
At first, she did not realize
that it was a date. It was only
about two weeks later that she
discovered Marty had formally
initiated a courtship process that
would change her life.
Like proper young suitors a
century ago, Word of God men
took full responsibility for initi-
ating courtship-s- and then only
after obtaining the proper per-
mission. "Marty had gone to his
pastoral leader to ask about me,"
Kathy says. "And then his pas-
toral leader had talked to m:y
pastoral leader. My pastoral
leader had given permission for
me to enter into a dating rela-
tionship. But all this time, I had .
no idea any of it was going on."
Only when Marty asked to see
her again did Kathy realize that
she was the target of a formal
marriage suit
That was OK; she was eager
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14 Detroit Free Press Magazine • Sept. 20, 1992
to marry someone, and Marty
seemed very nice. Their chaste
courtship lasted nearly a year-
always guided by theircoun-
selors, and they were wed in De-
cember 1977.
AS EARLY AS 1972, SOME
outside observers were becom-
ing alarmed at the degree of
control Martin, Clark and other
Word of God leaders exercised
a
over their flock. In stinging cri-
tique written for a church maga-
zine, the Rev. Charles Irvin, an
Ann Arbor priest, warned that
Word of God's leaders were far
too quick to "sprinkle holy wa-
ter on all that is said and done ....
Ninety-nine percent of the time
that which is merely a human
judgment is characterized as if
it were the 'Lord's all powerful
and holy Word."
But Ralph Martin and Steve
Clark were climbing so fast
through the hierarchy ofthe R0-
man Catholic Church that no lo-
cal critic could hope to catch
them.
Clark published one book,
"Unordained Elders and Re-
newal Communities," that
urged the Vaticanto ordain men
like himself and Martin as
priests or bishops. The Vatican
rejected that idea, but Pope Paul
VI endorsed the renewal move-
ment during a massive rally of
10,000charismatics that Wordof
God leaders helped organize in
Rome in 1975. An international
press corps of more than 100re-
porters heralded the pope's
blessing.
, A year after the rally, Martin
and Clark moved with a delega-
tion of Word of God leaders to
Brussels to spend several years
running the Catholic Church's
international headquarters for
the charismatic renewal.
Martin was granted easier ac-
cess to Paul VI and, later, to
John Paul ITthan many Catholic
bishops enjoyed. Afterone 1976'
visit to Rome with Belgian Car-
dinal Leo Josef Suenens, he
.wrote a glowing letter to his fol-
lowers in Ann Arbor. The Bel-
gian embassy in Rome had
treated them like royalty and
served them desserts on solid
gold plates, Martin boasted.
The Vatican itself was even
more glorious; palatial rooms:
rariks of Swiss guards, priceless
masterpieces by Raphael and
Michelangelo, flocks of scurry-
ing priests and nuns, and even
the bones of St. Peter, the
founder of the "church 2,000
years ago.
Capping the visit was the sue
cessor of Peter himself, who in
vited Martin into a small roon
to praise the young man's work
"You and your group - thr
community - have my bes
wishes and my blessing," Pop.
Paul VI declared.
Martin's verdict "far out"
NEARLYAS STRONG AS MAE
tin and Clark's faith in God \Val
their faith that training classe
and personal counseling coul
radically reshape their folloVl
ers'lives.
Shortly after the Word of Go
was founded, Clark helped de
sign a series of Life in the Spir
seminars that harvested a ne
crop of tongue-speaking chart
matics every six weeks. Copie
 ofthe seminar manuals quickly thority. More levelswere added
ranked among the Word of in 1982,when WordofGodlead-
God's best-selling products as ers launched the international
hundreds of other religious charismatic government they
groups tried to borrow their called the Sword of the Spirit
style. . The new government was de-
Other Word of God training signed to rule not onlythe Word
classes followed.The most in- of God but about 15,000 mem-
tense was a series taught from . bers of other charismatic com-
1980-84 that was dubbed, sim- munities around the world.
ply,the Training Course. It con-
sisted of40lectures designed to Bur EVEN AS THE WORD OF
spiritually train a Christian God hierarchy grew in size and
guerilla force. to combat four complexity, two things re-
movements the - mained con-
Word of God A I - 1972 stant: Martin,
consideredmor-. - sear y as , Clark and a
tal enemies of handful ofother
Christianity: some outside men usually
fern i n ism, wound up on
Marxism, secu- observers were top, and hun-
lar humanism, dreds of mar-
and Islam. The becoming alarmed ried women
course ended clungto the bot-
with a special at the degree of - tom rung. -
secret oath that In 1974,Word
graduates were control Word of God of God leaders
never supposed decided to ad-
to reveal to any- leaders exercised vise against any
one who had marriage ifthey
not taken the.
course already:
over t~hel'r-flock. thought
man was not
the
~ pledge our r; strong e-nough
!~ty to all who fight with us. .to dominate the woman he was
.~JWare ready for every sacrifice, pursuing. "Thehusband has the
even death, if the Lord honors us responsibilityto order the wife's
by calling us to diefor him or our and children's use of time," the
brothers ... ~ will be loyal to our coordinators said in 1974. "The
comma1uJers ... ~ will keep our . husband should direct the con-
plans and movements hidden versation and not leave it to his
from the enemy and his agents. wife.The husband should nor-
This was to be an unarmed, mal1ygive the practical direc-
spiritual war, members were tions."
taught But some Wordof God This doctrine of wifely sub-
families began storing food in mission was no brief experi-
. their basements just in case civ- ment; it was the bedrock of the
ilizationcollapsedaround them. . community's way of life for
"It was such a dark and para- nearly two decades. As late as
noid time;we were so obsessed 1988, the Sword of the Spirit
that the end of the world was leadership declared as an offi-
near,"Kathy Javomisky recalls. cialpolicy:"Thehusband, as the
"And we couldn't tell anyone head of the wife,is over every-
anythingabout this secret infor- thing in her life."
mation we had been given. We . The Word of God catalog of
stocked food and water in our directions to husbands and
basemenf-enoughforseveral wives grew longer and longer
~ weeks." over the years. Among the
Meanwhile, an elaborate hi- teachings:
i erarchy had sprung up in the • Married men should make up
!- Word of God to run its ever- a schedule each week for their
[t growinglistofprogramsandre- wives to follow at home. Men
11 inforce its endless stream of should never clean the house, <,
;- teachings.Bythe late '70s,there wash dishes or change diapers,
s were as manyas six levelsofau- which were regarded as dan-
 gerously "feminizing" activities. They were for-
bidden to coach their wives during childbirth.
• Fathers "should not be involved significantly
with the day-to-day care of children under the
age of 3, except when circumstances of life de-
mandit"
• The wives' weekly assignments were: clean-
ing, cooking meals, raising the children, and
keeping their homes orderly.They were trained .
specifically to suppress their angry, sad or ag-
gressive feelings, because these emotions
might be used to lure their husbands into shar-
ing housework or childcare.
· A husband should manage his household
like a good businessman manages his office,
Martin explained in a book called, "Husbands,
Wives, Parents, Children: Foundations for the
Christian Farnily."Towives, he advised: "Awife
who wants to support her husband's headship
must drop any defenses and truly allow him to
direct her life."
. Under the.letter ofWordof God law,marriage
had less to do with romantic love than it had to
do with "service," one ofthe community's most
popular buzzwords.
Women were told repeatedly over the years
not to deny sexual service to their husbands,
even ifthey did not feel like it Men's groups oc-
casionally were taught that they had the same
responsibility to provide sexual service if their
wives requested it In practice, however, many
women found that it was their husbands who
did the asking, and they who did the serving.
Many Word of God leaders, like Steve Clark,
lived in celibate male households and seem
never to have realized the havoc they were
wreaking in marriages.
In a 1976letter to other leaders, Clark com-
plained that too many married couples were
getting sloppy: "The husbands are not mainly
the heads-of the wives, but they are companions
to them. They mainly hang around with their
wives and the result is that their approach to
lifegets feminized ... The men are still assistant
mothers, in my'observation,"
Muriel Mooney was a zealous advocate of
Martin and Clark's teachings for the first few
years of her marriage. She had read all of
Clark's 761-pagemanifesto on the subject, "Man
and Woman in Christ"
"I bought every page of that book lock, stock
and barrel. I had yellow highlighting on every
. page," Mooney recalls.
She and her husband, Jim, zealously divided
their tasks. ft
- "He never changed a diaper; and I washed V
every dish," Muriel Mooney says. "If! was sick, fi
I was supposed to call another woman in the
neighborhood to make dinner for my family."
When Muriel went out to a meeting, Jim
would take their baby daughter upstairs in the
duplex where they were living to have another
woman from the community change her wet di-
apers.
N
 IN 1990, WORD OF GOD
leaders asked Jeane Larson, a
longtime leader among the
group's women, to help conduct '
a private study of community
life.
A single woman, she had little
notion of what married life in .
the community was like until
she began interviewing Word of
God wives. The picture that be-
gan to emerge horrified her.
"People began telling me just
horrible things," Larson recalls.
"I went home at night and I
. couldn't sleep ... Here in the
middle of this community
where everything was supposed
to be going right, I suddenly
hear 200 stories from people
who are miserable.
"It shocked me." Larson says.
"Something was really wrong
here, and I started asking: How
can we be teaching this in other
places? Is our whole system
off?"
. Larson fillally shared her dis-
covery with other Word of God
leaders. Far too many Word of Ralph Marlin, continuing head of the mrd of God, is a popular televangelist who hosts a national1V show,
God women were "disillusioned
with life, with the community, ence relationship to your hus- ers their empire was rotting at that should be kept from out- •
and with the Lord," she report- band. If you wanted to leave, it its roots, Word ofGod members' siders: the community's teach-
ed. In marriages, Larson found would mean a divorce. You had were discovering that the ings about pastoral counseling
a startling "lack of communica- _ to go along. And you quickly group's leadership itself was riv- and the authority of its leaders,
.on-witff lrusbands;Iiu~bands learned that if you were ques- en by dissent. often referred to simply as
keeping an emotional distance." tioning anything, you shouldn't For the previous 15years, or- "headship," and also its teach-
Many wives felt unloved. Some mention it" dinary members had been privy ings about men's and women's
reported being treated more At a Word of God community to very little that went on be- roles. A public airing of these
like the oldest child than as an gathering just before Christmas tween Martin, Clark and other subjects could hurt future re-
equal partner in caring for the in 1990, hundreds of members . top leaders. In 1974,the coordi- cruitment, he warned in several
family. were surprised to see Barbara nators had decided that they memos to his friends in the mid
By the time Larson reported Morgan come to the main mi- should no longer consult their 1970s."Weare getting a reputa-
her findings to Word of God crophone and ask to make a own membership on most ofthe tion for a position on men-wom-
leaders, she estimated that at public statement. For many decisions they would make en roles and headship that is
least 20 percent of the commu- years, Morgan had been one of about their future. causing an evangelism prob-
nity's women were seeking help the chief trainers of women in "Now that we have become a - lem," he warned in one note.
from counselors or support the community. community with headship, we In the late 1970s,Word of God
groups. Many others who want- The crowd was hushed as no longer have to approach de- leaders urged members to pull
ed counseling had been forbid- Morgan began in a frail voice, cision-making in the same way," out of a dozen Ann Arbor
den by.their husbands to seek her words halting and quivering the coordinators declared in a churches they had been attend-
it as she fought back tears: document that was kept secret ing and asked them, instead, to
Even if married women "I want to repent for teaching from most of their members. attend four new Word of God
thought of walking away from authoritatively the community The coordinators deepened congregations they were orga-
the community, they were al- policy on subordination and their insulation the following nizing.
most powerless to do so, Kathy obedience ... It caused women year when they decreed that Around this same time, a
Javornisky says. "You sat there to lose confidence and strength "community members ... handful of members who
in the community month after and I want to repent for betray- should not be telling communi- staunchly opposed the coordi-
month, year after year, and ing women by teaching it." ty problems outside the com- nators' rigid style were kicked
heard the teachings, and it built munity, even to a priest or min- out of the group and officially
. up walls around you, enclosing ABOUT THE SAME TIME ister." shunned. Their former friends
you," she says. "You'were mar- that Morgan, Larson and others Steve Clark decided that in the community were forbid-
ried and you were in an obedi- .were telling Word of God lead- there were two main subjects den to talk to them. By 1982,
Birminghl .

16 Detroit Free Press Magazine - Sept. 20, 1992

'The Choices m Face. "

when Word of God leaders told

their members that they now
should join the heavenly empire
they were calling Sword of the
Spirit - few people were brave
enough to raise objections. -
. The Sword of the Spirit was
founded mainly by Word of God
leaders, but Steve Clark's hope
was that the new international
government would evolve
quickly to include representa-
tives from many charismatic
communities around the world.
Each group would follow the
Word of God's example in giv-
ing up local independence and
agreeing to be bound by the
elaborate codes of behavior
spelled out in the Sword of the
Spirit's hefty constitution.
Several dozen charismatic
groups - from Northern Ire-
land and Mexico to South Africa
and the Philippines - agreed to
join.
This was not a major change
for most members in Washte-
naw County, because most of
Sword of the Spirit's rules were
simply transplanted from the
Wordof God.WordofGod mem- _

bers did have to.take yet anoth-
. er solemn vo.w,this one pledg-
ing their lives to.the new world-
wide government -:- but,
afterward, most of them never
found out much about what the
new government did.
Behind its cloak of secrecy,
the Sword of the Spirit soon
~w stagnant That's because
it was trying to.export an elab-
orate spiritual system that was
not really working even in the
leaders' own hometown, says
Ron Ghormley "Instead of first
solving the problems we had
been having at home, we just
increased them by 10times."
A large part of the problem,
says Bert Ghezzi, a longtime
Wo.rdof Godleader and friend.
of both Martin and Clark, was
the leaders' determination to.
provide specific rules for every
aspect of their followers' lives.
"This constitution was much
more complicated than the CQn-
stitution of the United States-
this was high falutin' stuff. It
was like Steve regarded himself
as this great judge setting up
me laws for this international
nation we were building,"
·G4ezzi says.
Ghezzi was one ofthe few in-
siders who.objected out loud. ''1
was saying regularly to Steve
and Ralph and Peter
WIlliamson: 'Thisis crazy,guys!
Weare at a level of detail here in
trying to.manage people's lives
that just won't workl' I thought
they would listen to. someone
like me who. had been their
friend and colleague for 22 or
23 years. But I was basically
told to.get with the program or
leave. When I resisted them,
the pressure justgotworse and
I wasn't going to. subject my
family to it So Ileft. "
The Ghezzis moved to.Flori-
da, where Bert now works for a
company that writes materials
used to. train business man-
agers. But most WQrd of God
members were not told any-
thing about why Ghezzi had left
so. abruptly. It was not until a
year ago. that Ralph Martin
gave Ghezzi a formal apology
and invited him to.publicly tell
his story
5
-
Jim Cavnar, who. had helped
Martin and Clark found the
Wo.rd of God, says he had no.
clue of the problems his old
friends were facing.
"1 was a coordinator in the ~
Wo.rdof God and, until October
1989, none of us knew that
Ralph and Steve, and other
guys in the Sword of the Spirit,
had reached a point of r~fusing
to. work together anymore,"
Cavnar says. "We were aware
that things weren't working
well because decisions weren't
being made and there was a
kind of paralysis. Then, Ralph
and Steve finally told us in 1989
that they could not work with
each other any more."
In the midst of it all, God still
was speaking through the
mouths of many Wo.rdof God -
members. In September 1989,
according to. one memo. circu-
lated among the community;
He warned that the Sword of
the Spirit had become like a
great tree with many roots and
branches. God said: "1 am go-
ing to.sift through the roots one
by one, and every Qne that is
not mine I will pull up. My wind
will blow through the branches
and those which are not grafted
in me will be broken o.ff.I will
reach out with my hand and
break the trunk."
Finally, the crises, at the top
and the bottom of the empire
converged. Jeane Larson's re-
port was circulating through
the community; and many oth-
er longtime members were be-
ginning to. voice objections.
The massive tree trunk was
ready to.snap, just as God had
said.
IN LANSING, BISHOP KEN- ,
i
neth Povish, the spiritual leader
o.fall Catholics in Ann Arbor;
watched as the empire col- 1-
)
lapsed.
"It was like the Velvet Revo-
'lutlons in eastern Europe when
people finally began to.protest ,
against the system that tightly
controlled them," Povish says. ii
"It was almost a spontaneous ,•
I
r
uprising. Heads of the house- t
;1
holds and regional pastors had Ii
n
had enormous power over
-=
 these people. Although it ap-
peared the people were willing-
ly accepting the directions their
leaders had been giving -
there really were many resent-
ments underneath that finally
came out."
Kathy Javornisky quietly
started asking her own ques-
tions. She found out about Tom
Yoder, a man who had been
kicked out of the community in
1976for distributing Xeroxes of
secret decisions the coordina-
tors had made. Since then, Yo-
der had continued building up
an unofficial archive of more
than 10,000Word of God docu-
ments, photographs and tapes.
"1·started reading through
Tom's files, and then I brought
some of them home with me
over a couple of weeks," Javor-
nisky recalls. "I'd say: 'Oh, my
God!I can't believethis was said
by the coordinators!' Or: '1can't
believe we didn't know that this
was done!'1read many things to
my husband and 1helped influ-
ence him, too."

IN MAY 1990, A GROUP OF

disgruntled Word of God mem-
bers forced the Sword of the
Spirit Assembly to grant them
their4ndependence om the
worldwide government. Since
then, several other charismatic
communities, once governed by
the Sword ofthe Spirit,have fol-
lowed the Word of God's exam-
ple. The international group's
membership' has been cut in
half, to about 7,000.
After the Wordof GPdwon its
independence, a fifthofits mem-
bers left the group to remain
part ofthe international govern-
ment. Those 250adults have re-
organized themselves as a new
branch ofthe Sword ofthe Spir-
it called the Washtenaw
Covenant Community. .
Gerry Rauch, one of the four
Word of God founders, is now
the Covenant Community's
chief spokesman. He says
proudly: "1 think we're doing
something wonderful and 1
want people to know that. We
really enjoy who we are as a .
community'and we think this is
a delightful way of life." But
18 Detroit Free Press Maga~ine • Sept. 20, 1992
After almost 20 years with the JiJbrdof God, Kathy javornisky became
movement. Her husband, Marty, remains a member.
Rauch's group remains closely
guarded. Steve Clark and Bruce
Yocum,who also have remained
with Sword of the Spirit, de-·
elined to be interviewed for this
story.
A new constitution has been
drafted for the Sword of the
Spirit that greatly simplifies the
government and modifies many
of its harsher teachings, Rauch
says. But he also refuses to re-
lease a copy of it.
The Word of God still lists
about 1,100 members. Atten-
dance at a recent meeting at
Cleary College was about 300.
Although the name remains the .
PHOTOGRAPH
I
same,the community has made
major changes.
Last summer; 12 top Word of
God leaders met and humbly
admitted that they had begun to
doubt the authenticity of some
of the prophetic messages they
thought God had given them
over the years.
"There was authentic prophe-
cy all along - but there also
was a real peer pressure that put
prophets more in the service of
bolstering our authority than in
really guiding us," Martin ex-
plains.
. On March 1 of this year; for
the first time in more than two
- STEVEN R. NIC

iisenChanted and has left the
decades, Word of God leaders
allowed their followers to vote
on the basic shape of their gov-
ernment
There was a landslide for rad-
-ical reform.
More than 90 Percent of the
478 members who attended that
afternoon voted to dump the old
system of counseling that guid-
ed each member's life, to scrap
most of the heavy-duty training
courses, and to allow women to
serve on a new, democratically
elected leadership team. Some
members cautiously asked if
these changes should be dis-
cussed first with their old
KERSON
------~--------------------------------~-
friends in the Sword of the Spir-
it - but more than 70 percent
voted not to bother.
Many former community
leaders have left the Ann Arbor
area or are preparing to leave.
Late last year, Jim Cavnar issued
an open letter, urging both the
Word of God and the Sword of
the Spirit to disband. His idea
was rejected and, this summer,
he was laid off in the downsizing
and reorganization of the Word
of God staff. Cavnar had been a
fund-raiser for a TV series host-
ed by Ralph Martin in recent
years. Last month he moved to
Florida to work as a fund-raiser
for Food for the Poor, a religious
group trying to relieve poverty
in the Caribbean.
Martin remains head of the
Word of God leadership team
and a popular televangelist. His
weekly nationwide TV show,
'The Choices We Face," broad-
casts interviews with Catholic
leaders, sermons and Christian
music to about 500,000 viewers.
Martin has taken on a nation-
al mission to proclaim and try to
repair many of his group's past
mistakes. He has formally apol-
ogized to dozens of people, in-
cluding the archivistTom Yoder,
whom Martin now calls, "proba-
bly the besthistorian we have."
This summer, Martin appeared
at the 25th anniversary celebra-
tion for the charismatic renewal
in Pittsburgh to deliver a brutal-
ly honest confession of the Word
of God's failings. His list ranged
from "Legalism," "Self-impor-
tance" and "Disdain for other
Christians" to "Authoritarian-
ism" and "Secrecy.'"
Martin's epitaph for the heav-
enly empire he helped create:
'The Word of God community
began in a genuine encounter
with God in the power of the
Holy Spirit We wanted to give
our whole lives to him and be
fruitful in his service. To a large
extent, this is what happened.
But ... a gradual shift occurred
which we scarcely noticed at
first We moved from primarily
trusting in and exalting Christ
to focusing more and more on .
'our way of life,' 'our teaching,'
'our leaders,' 'our approach,'
_
 ~& E!

'our community.' to try to change with her. They rem,ain

"Asa leader during this time it's been Roman Catholics,but, earlier this year,
humbling, embarrassing, and a cause they left the Wordof God.
for grief to see the differentwayswe've "Tun and I were not friends before we
gotten off track, and the ways in which were married," Murielsays. "Now'We're
we'vegrievedthe Lordand our brothers trying to figure out·how to become
and sisters in Christ It's been a time for\ friends and that's a very paWul pro- .
repentance, for soul searching, and for ''', cess."
change." The Iavorniskys
Martin isdoing On March 1, for the first followed a similar
this partly to help path.
preserve the credi- time in more than two "NowI regret that I
bility of the larger never had a normal
renewal movement. decades, Word of God dating experience,"
Since 196?, 10 mil- . Kathy Javornisky
lion American-
Catholics have had
leaders allowed thel"r that says. "Iwas fortunate
I liked the guy
some kind ofcharis- who pursued me -
matic experience, followers to vote on the and that we're still
and there are mil- married. But in our
lions more around basic shape of their marriage, I had a
the world. very heavily submis-.
In March, Pope - government. There was a siverelationshipwith
John Paul II repeat- him. In the last two
ed his own endorse- I d I"d f years, we have had to
ment ofthe renewal: an s I e or do a lot of restructur-
"A~ you celebrate radl"calreform. ing of everything in
the 25th anniver- our marriage to try to
sary of the begin- become partners."
ning of the Catholic They have agreed
charismatic renewal,I willinglyjoin you to a compromise:He remains a Wordof
in giving praise to God for the manM God ~em~er; she severed her ties in'
fruitswhich it has borne inthe lifeofthe Nbvembet;t ! {- - .

Church." lor a year, Ka'thyhas n t prayed in .

It's unclear, however, whether the tohgues, once an essential-part of her
WordofGodwillsurvive as a fruit ofthe , spiritualtraining,'She has begun to won-
renewal. der ifthe strange sounds she made dur-
The group's assets have droppedfrom ing prayer weren't just something she
$1.2millionin October 1990,tojust over made upto please her friends.
$600,000in March. Leaders had expect- Youthfuldreams are returning, and
ed donations of $768,000in the fiscal KathyJavorniskyis taking collegeclass- -
year that ended in March, but they only es to prepare for a possible career as a
got $606,000.Nowthey're budgeting for teacher, or perhaps a social worker, or
$500,000,but they admit even that goal maybe even a writer.
is optimistic. She still regrets the many small, but
Men and women in as many as 200 priceless experiences she.has lost and
Word of God marriages have been in- cannotrecapture - likethe momenther
volved in some form of counseling or 9-year-olddaughter Laurawas born, and
therapy,estimates PhilTIews,amember communityteachingbarred Martinfrom
of the Word of God's new leadership - the deliveryroom.
-team, Kathykeeps a journal now and, earli-
Kathy. and Marty Javornisky and er this year, jotted down: "I sometimes
Muriel and Jim Mooney have been wonderifthe painwillever dissipate,but
among them. at least I'm better at understanding the
Muriel Mooney gradually decided origins of my pain ... I'm not walking
that Steve Clark's book about men and aroundin afog anymorewonderingwhy
women was dangerous. "I tried every I hurt I know why I hurt And I'm feel-
word of it and I found out that it's very _ing there's a mellowingof the intensity
damaging ... It just battered my self-es- ofmy rage ... and an incrediblesadness
teem." regarding what could have been.". •
Abouttwoyears ago,she toldher hus-
band that the entire structure of their DAVID CRUMM is the Free Press reli-
marriage had to change, andJim agreed giQn writer.
 Upfront

WAS BAPTIZED AND REARED IN THE said, pointing to the unscathed Bel Air.And as

I Catholic Church, but I was 8 years old be- she described to my father the timelyIf-turn that
fore I had my :firstgenuine religious experi- had taken us out ofdeath's path, it seemed a rea-
ence, and it took place not in the musty sane- sonable enough conclusion:
tuary of St Pius X Church but in the ,
front seat ofmy family's '61 Chevrolet
Confronted with the evidence that
God had intervened personally to
Bel Air. spare my life, I eagerly awaited fur-
My father had taken the bus to ther instruction. I was familiar, by
work that day, then hopped a second ' then, with the general prescriptions
, to the funeral home where the moth- and prophecies set forth in the scrip-
er of a co-worker had been laid out tures, but after that afternoon straight
My mother had agreed to pick him up , out of the Book of Revelations I an-
on yet another bus route that passed ticipated more specific, personalized
by the funeral home and ended about Dickerson direction. Surely a Heavenly Father
five miles from our house. who had taken the time and trouble,
And so it was that she and I found ourselves on a planet bustling with tens of millions of ve-
parked on a shadyside street late that August af- hicles, to remove one from harm's way must'
ternoon - the engine shut off,the car windows have some pretty urgent mission in mind for that.
cranked down -;- waiting for my father's bus. I car's youngest passenger;
don't remember what we talked about, but I do This is essentially the same sense of height-
recall that the bus was late, and that we had been ened expectation, Ithink, with which thousands
waiting for some time when my mother abrupt- of people in this country flocked to the Chris-
ly turned the key in the ignition,looked over her tian charismatic movement in the late '60s and
left shoulder, and made a cautious U-turn to the early '70s, and specificallyto the Ann Arbor reli-
opposite curb so that our car would be facing gious community whose astonishing saga Free
home when my father arrived. Press religionwriter David Crumm relates in to-
We heard the runaway car before we saw it day's magazine.
The roar of an accelerating engine, a horrible When Crumm first'outliiied the story !Q me
screeching oftires, and it was upon us - a §hinY~~C".,hist~rin~,~olGny'hea:din disbelief-But I do
-', ~.' ee~ not dismiss those Ann Arborites who believed
sedan that careerelLwilEllyv.tJif't:lJ:e'
Jumped the far curb precisely where we had they heard God speaking to them, nor the in-
been parked minutes earlier, and crashed into tense spiritual hunger that fueled their expecta-
an ancientoak not 20 yards behind us. tions.
When my father arrived just a few moments Twenty-seven years have passed since my
later,he confronted a scene of surreal horror: an mother made that providentialU-turn,and Ihave
inferno of acrid fumes, a burgeoning crowd of yet to hear God's follow-up instructions. But
helpless onlookers, and the spectacle ofhis own sometimes.in the hours between darkness and
wife and child clutching one another in abject dawn, Iwake in my bed; and before Iremember
fright, unable even to tell him what had hap- who or where Iam, I realize that Iam listening
pened. . still. •
My mother was the :firstto recover the power
of speech. "God was in that car with us," she BRIAN DICKERSON

In This Issue On The Cover

DaVe Bany The Secrets of Shaving 4 , A quarter century
• th lit
I Just Don't Understand You Black and White 5
,!.Ii l'li'
. ~ m' e· eo f an Ann
Arbor religious com.
Letters .20
munity that con-
DetJarbnent of State In Grand Haven 21.-,
vulsed thousands of '
At Home Treasures ofthe Heart .22 families 4
Why Things Are Infectious Diseases 23 Cover design by
Diversions Crossword 23 Claire Innes

,.J
BriaRDickersoO, Editor; Lany &tOe" Associate Editor; Andrew ll1art1ey, Art Director; GeraIymLama, Production I
Editor; Deborah WiUtey; Design Director; Antoinette Martin, Sheryl James, Jobnette Howard, Staff Writers; StevenR. ~
Nickerson, Staff Photographer.
EdIariJI,222-S559; Mvriin& Gal Wysodd, 222-2580; BackCopies,222-6876. Address all correspondence to Detroit Free Press
Magazine, 321 Lafayette Blvd., Detroit 48226 '