From Local Ministry to National Leadership—and Back to an Independent Outpost
For three decades, Stephen Black occupied an increasingly prominent place in the American “ex-gay” movement. He rose from work at an Oklahoma City ministry to leadership in Exodus International, helped establish the Restored Hope Network after a bitter dispute with Exodus leadership, and eventually chaired the new network’s board.
Then his institutional trajectory reversed.
In 2023, Black left First Stone Ministries, the organization where he had worked since August 1993 and which he had led for twenty years. First Stone continued without him. Restored Hope Network, where his board service had already ended, continued under other leadership. Black subsequently established Coram Deo Ministries, through which he continues much of the pastoral and advocacy work that has defined his career.
First Stone itself confirms Black’s August 1993–July 2023 tenure and twenty years as executive director.
Black’s history offers a case study in the evolution of the organized ex-gay movement and the increasing overlap in his own work among pastoral ministry, theological conflict, LGBTQ policy and partisan politics. It also complicates a simple story of radicalization. The documentary record suggests considerable continuity in Black’s underlying theology even as his rhetoric became increasingly confrontational and his institutional position changed dramatically.
From Personal Conversion to First Stone Ministries
According to Black’s autobiographical accounts, he lived a gay-identified life for approximately eight years before an evangelical Christian conversion in February 1983.
His earliest surviving testimony attributes his homosexuality to childhood experiences and describes his conversion in terms of repentance, deliverance and submission to biblical authority.
That source is unusually useful because First Stone dates the page to February 1993 and identifies it as an early version of a testimony Black says was written in 1990 and first published in 1991. A 1992 article by Black, Born Again? Examine Yourself!, is also still available in First Stone’s archive.
Black joined First Stone in August 1993. Later archived writings include Christ’s Cry — Covenant Love! from 1999, “Covenant Friend” from 2000 and “The Secret of Forgiveness” from 2001. The surviving early material gives a better basis for evaluating his development than retrospective descriptions alone.
These writings complicate a narrative which supposes that Black began as a moderate pastoral figure and later abandoned that approach. His early material does emphasize personal conversion, healing, forgiveness, relationships and discipleship. But the underlying theological framework—homosexuality as sin and brokenness from which Christians should seek freedom—was already firmly established.
The more defensible question is therefore not when Black acquired his core theology, but when and how his public rhetoric expanded from personal and pastoral themes into increasingly combative theological, racial, and political conflict.
From Oklahoma Ministry to Exodus Leadership
During the 2000s, Black became increasingly involved in the national infrastructure surrounding Exodus International, then the largest umbrella organization for ministries serving people seeking to leave homosexuality.
Black’s own professional history says he chaired the Exodus International Ministry Council from 2008 until 2012 and resigned amid the organization’s internal theological disputes.
His rhetoric toward critics was already combative by 2008.
Contemporary reporting quoted Black describing Ex-Gay Watch and other critics as “GAY hate groups” that wanted to somehow silence ex-gays. Towleroad preserved the quotation at the time.
Ex-Gay Watch separately documented Black accusing the site of “WATCHING and STALKING ex-gay leaders.” Its May 15, 2008 digest says Black subsequently removed the statement from his blog.
The episode matters chronologically. It demonstrates that Black was using adversarial and agitated language toward opponents years before the collapse of Exodus or the creation of Restored Hope Network.
Obama, Christianity and National Decline
Black’s surviving Twitter/X record provides unusually useful contemporaneous evidence of his ethnic and political rhetoric during and after Barack Obama’s presidency beginning in 2009.
The posts range from conventional partisan opposition to much stronger assertions about Obama’s Christianity, Americanness, loyalty and presidential legitimacy.
The tweets discussed below remain visible through an X search for “Obama” references in Black’s account.
2010: American identity
On December 19, 2010, for example, Black praised Sarah Palin and her family before declaring Palin “more American in her little finger than all Obama.”
The statement is notable because Black framed his comparison in terms of Americanness and body-part size rather than a particular Obama administration policy.
2012: Presidential legitimacy and birther material
On March 21, 2012, Black posted:
“Sheriff Joe: ‘Tons’ more shocking Obama Info. The BIGGEST Censorship in USA history! SCARY!!!”
The tweet linked to a WorldNetDaily story about Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s investigation of Obama’s eligibility for the presidency. The article promoted disproven allegations that Obama’s long-form birth certificate and Selective Service registration were forged.
The evidence supports saying that Black amplified racist birther material. It does not, without additional evidence, establish every claim Black personally believed about Obama’s birthplace or eligibility.
2014: LGBTQ rights
On June 18, 2014, Black tweeted a CBN report headlined “Obama Expanding Gay Rights with Executive Order” with Black adding, “More Gay America from #POTUS!“
The underlying report concerned an executive order barring federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.
This provides a direct example of Black interpreting an Obama administration policy through his own sexual insecurity and malaise.
2015: Conversion therapy and Christian legitimacy
The connection became more explicit on April 9, 2015.
Former Exodus president Alan Chambers published a Religion News Service commentary supporting Obama’s call to end conversion therapy for minors. Chambers wrote that he stood with Obama in seeking restrictions on the practice and expressed regret for his own previous promotion of reparative therapy. The commentary survives in the Washington Post and Sojourners.
Black responded on Twitter: “Alan Chambers & Obama call themselves Christians & yet both rebuke Christians – both are against RT! #evil #apostate”
The tweet is particularly useful because it connects several strands of Black’s public work in a single contemporaneous statement: his dispute with Chambers, opposition to restrictions on conversion therapy, political opposition to Obama and his judgment about who qualified as an authentic Christian.
Black’s own website provides additional evidence of the theological dispute with Chambers. In In Alan Chambers’ Own Words, Black described Chambers as a “so-called Christian,” accused him of promoting “gay Christianity,” and characterized his theology as heresy.
2015: “Real Christians”
On October 5, 2015, Black shared an article titled “The Demonization of Christianity” and added: “Serious days Folks! #Obama & #Liberals hate real Christians”
This is analytically more useful than many of Black’s routine anti-Obama insults because it explicitly divides political actors according to Black’s conception of authentic Christianity.
2019: Obama, Trump and Pride
Of Black’s 313 original tweets and 112 reposts about Obama, 92 occurred after Obama left office in early 2017. Black’s framework of classifying a devout African American Christian as Muslim or demonic continued.
On September 8, 2019, another X user challenged Black over evangelical support for Donald Trump despite Trump’s sexual conduct. Black replied that the discussion had nothing to do with Trump, then continued: “At least he is receiving prayer from godly leaders, something the last perverted President threw out of the White House!” Black contrasted that with Obama’s White House displaying rainbow colors after the 2015 Supreme Court marriage decision, which Black described as the “curse #PrideBanner colors.”
The tweet is useful not because it demonstrates ordinary Republican-versus-Democratic preference, but because Black explicitly evaluated the two presidents through his religious understanding of LGBTQ issues and “godly” leadership.
Black’s own 2019 essay Prophecy of Pride, republished on his personal site in 2026, supplies broader context for his meaning. It associates the Pride flag and LGBTQ identities with sin, demonic imagery and divine judgment.
What the Obama tweet record establishes
These examples were selected from the much larger archive of Black’s 425 Obama-related tweets. Other posts called Obama “disgusting,” “nasty,” an “enemy of Israel,” “the most corrupt POTUS in American History,” and accused him of “treacherously undermining” American interests.
Black also circulated claims from partisan and ideological media. In March 2015 he promoted Mark Levin’s accusation that antisemitism “reeks” from the Obama administration. Contemporary coverage confirms Levin made that accusation during an appearance with Sean Hannity.
In October 2015 Black shared a Todd Starnes article contrasting the military’s treatment of Bowe Bergdahl and Charles Martland, adding that American military commanders had been “neutered” under Obama. The article survives under the headline “Obama Military Honors a Traitor, Punishes a Hero.”
The following month, Black shared a Breitbart report about one of the Paris attackers having entered Europe amid the refugee flow, adding “#Obama – nothing to see here, move on. #Islam.” The original Breitbart article survives.
Taken together, Stephen Black’s tweet record documents a political vocabulary in which Christian authenticity, race-based stereotypes of Islam, LGBTQ rights, American identity, national decline and, in at least one instance, conspiracy-oriented challenges to presidential legitimacy became intertwined.
It does not by itself establish that Black is a white Christian nationalist. It does, however, provide concrete material for asking a narrower question: how closely did Black’s ideas about Christianity, American identity and government overlap with ideas scholars identify with white Christian nationalism?
The Exodus Schism and Restored Hope Network
By 2012, the conflict within Exodus International had become irreconcilable.
Restored Hope Network’s own institutional history says Anne Paulk, Stephen Black and Exodus founder Frank Worthen spearheaded what Worthen called a “Truth Squad” to address theological, governance and leadership disputes with Exodus. After their concerns were rejected, Restored Hope Network formed in May 2012 and incorporated in July.
RHN identifies Black as a member of its Forming Board and says he was subsequently elected to its first Board of Directors at the network’s September 2012 conference.
Black’s own professional history says he served on the RHN board from 2012 through 2018, became vice chairman and served as chairman during his final year.
An outside observer provides another contemporaneous source. Political Research Associates attended RHN’s inaugural 2012 conference and reported that Black spoke of an “army of ex-homosexuals” rising during what he described as the End Times.
The institutional evidence therefore establishes Black as more than a participant in the post-Exodus movement. He helped build one of the principal organizations created by leaders who rejected the direction Exodus was taking.
A Broader and More Confrontational Religious Message
Black’s subsequent writings increasingly placed disputes over homosexuality inside a larger struggle over what is to be tolerated within Christianity.
His targets included not only LGBTQ activists but Christians whose theology he considered too accommodating.
His 2013 In Alan Chambers’ Own Words article described Chambers’ changing theology as “damnable heresy,” accused him of embracing “gay Christianity,” and argued that Christians had a scriptural obligation to expose his teaching.
Black continued to criticize Christian approaches that allowed people to identify as gay while remaining celibate and later attacked Revoice and related approaches. His own ministry materials characterize such developments as departures from biblical orthodoxy.
By 2019, Black’s article Prophecy of Pride framed LGBTQ Pride in explicitly apocalyptic and spiritual-warfare terms. Black associated honesty about one’s sexual orientation with Baal, Jezebel, sexual decadence and divine judgment. He republished the essay on his personal site in June 2026, identifying it as originally posted September 8, 2019.
The documentary record therefore supports describing a widening and increasingly confrontational and exclusive rhetorical framework.
Claims of Sexual-Orientation Change
In 2017, Black published Freedom Realized: Finding Freedom from Homosexuality & Living a Life Free from Labels, incorporating what was called the First Stone Ministries Effectiveness Survey.
First Stone later described the survey as demonstrating “conclusive” evidence of change and reported that more than 70 percent of participants who spent at least a year in its programs subsequently described themselves in terms First Stone interpreted as successful outcomes.
The publisher describes Freedom Realized as “The Complete First Stone Ministries Effectiveness Survey Report” and summarizes several of its reported results.
The survey should be identified accurately as research produced from within the ministry advocating the intervention rather than described as independent clinical research.
The 2023 Break with First Stone
Black’s institutional position changed dramatically in 2023.
The most detailed public account of Black’s transition appears in a January 2024 article by Randy Scobey, a former Exodus International executive vice president. Scobey reproduced a statement attributed to First Stone’s board describing the events preceding Black’s departure.
According to the reproduced board statement, board members learned that two important legal deadlines had been missed. It also says staff members reported being afraid to give Black honest feedback. The board convened a staff meeting, described Black’s response as “unexpected and unacceptable,” and asked him to take a sabbatical.
According to the same statement, Black subsequently submitted his written resignation. The board appointed interim leadership while negotiating a separation agreement. It explicitly said the situation did not involve sexual immorality.
Scobey drew broader conclusions about Black’s leadership and the ex-gay movement. Those conclusions should be distinguished from the First Stone statement he reproduced.
Black published his own statement on August 4, 2023. He said his departure was not the result of ethical, moral or sexual failure, acknowledged that continuing to lead the staff had become counterproductive, and described the transition as necessary.
His later account uses stronger language. On his Coram Deo page, Black describes himself as having been “forced out of my prior ministry position.”
The accounts differ in perspective and emphasis but overlap on several central facts: serious internal conflict had developed; First Stone’s board sought a leadership change; sexual misconduct was not the issue identified by either side; and Black ultimately submitted his resignation.
What Happened to Black’s National Role?
Black’s separation from First Stone did not coincide with his departure from Restored Hope Network’s governing board, however. His own résumé dates his RHN board service from 2012 through 2018—approximately five years before the First Stone dispute. RHN currently lists Black on its Advisory Council page rather than among its governing board.
That distinction is important. The available evidence does not establish that RHN expelled Black, barred him from returning, or disciplined him following his departure from First Stone.
Nor does RHN’s structure support some stronger conclusions initially considered during this research. RHN recognizes several kinds of participation—including member ministries, pastoral affiliates, spiritual mentors and pastoral counselors. Its FAQ says voting member ministries require unanimous board approval, while pastors, counselors and spiritual mentors may apply as non-voting members.
There is therefore no evidentiary basis for predicting whether RHN would accept or reject a future application involving Black or Coram Deo. The defensible conclusion is narrower: Black once occupied a significant national governance position in the organization he helped establish and no longer occupies that position.
Coram Deo: A New Institutional Base
After leaving First Stone, Black established Coram Deo Ministries.
Black describes Coram Deo as a new “vision, mission, and calling.” He says he works from offices at First Southern Baptist Church and continues much of the pastoral-care work he performed during his decades at First Stone. He also describes plans involving speaking and missionary work.
His description explicitly connects the new ministry with his separation from First Stone, contrasting his current environment with what he describes as being “forced out” of his former position.
Coram Deo therefore represents both continuity and reinvention: Black continues substantially the same religious and political mission through a new institutional base centered on his own ministry.
Continuity as Much as Radicalization
Black’s career does not fit neatly into a story in which a moderate pastoral counselor suddenly became a political extremist.
His early writings demonstrate that the theological foundations of his later ministry were present by the early 1990s. Adversarial rhetoric toward critics is documented by 2008. His X/Twitter history shows highly personalized political opposition (with ethnic undertones) to Obama beginning by at least 2010. And by RHN’s inaugural conference in 2012, an observer reported Black speaking about an “army of ex-homosexuals” in the context of the End Times.
What changed more clearly was the breadth and intensity of the framework surrounding Black’s longstanding theological beliefs.
Disputes about homosexuality became disputes about who qualified as a genuine Christian. LGBTQ-rights policies became evidence, in Black’s telling, of intrinsic hostility toward Christianity. Political opponents of Black could be portrayed as threats to America itself. Cultural change toward ethnic, religious, and sexual inclusion was increasingly described through themes of apostasy, persecution, spiritual warfare and national decline.
There are recognizable points of contact between this rhetoric and ideas discussed in scholarship about contemporary Christian nationalism. But overlap is not identity. Establishing that Black himself fits such a category would require evidence concerning his conception of the proper relationship between Christianity and American government.
The evidence reviewed for this article also does not establish the racial or ethnonationalist component necessary for the more specific characterization “white Christian nationalist.” Black’s amplification of racist birther material and his statements about Obama’s Americanness are relevant evidence about national identity and presidential legitimacy, but they need not by themselves be converted into a definitive conclusion about Black’s racial ideology.
From National Network to Independent Ministry
While now operating independently, Black’s fundamental message nevertheless remains recognizable: homosexuality is incompatible with his understanding of Christianity; honesty about one’s sexual orientation should be rejected; transformation is possible through Christian discipleship; and churches that accommodate honesty about sexual orientation or gender identity have departed from biblical truth.
The rhetoric surrounding that message has broadened and become increasingly intertwined with political and apocalyptic narratives. But the evidence suggests continuity as well as change.
Stephen Black’s history is therefore not simply the story of a religious counselor who moved into politics. It documents a period in which pastoral practice, internal and interpersonal theological conflict, LGBTQ policy, and partisan politics became increasingly difficult to separate within parts of the ex-gay movement—and the trajectory of one leader who rose to national institutional influence before returning to a much more individualized—and isolated—ministry.