Basic Info
Exodus Cry is an anti-sex trafficking and anti-pornography nonprofit founded in 2008 by Benjamin Nolot, headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. The organization presents itself as a human rights group dedicated to ending sex trafficking and exploitation.
Exodus Cry originated as a weekly prayer group at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City (IHOPKC). That church is now mired in scandal over accusations of sexual and spiritual abuse against its founder, Mike Bickle, who once said that homosexuality “opens the door to the demonic realm”.
Exodus Cry was involved in the production of the film “Sound of Freedom” (2023), which dramatizes anti-trafficking efforts but has been widely criticized for sensationalism and promoting misleading narratives about trafficking in the U.S.
Founder Benjamin Nolot made several public and historic statements branding homosexuality as an “unspeakable offense to God” and equating abortion to a Holocaust. In one 2013 tweet he wrote: “Hitler says hi” to abortion supporters.
Controversies
At the climax of Netflix’s new documentary Pray Away, former conversion therapy advocate Randy Thomas puts the consequences of the movement he helped spearhead into context. Thomas worked with Exodus International, once the world’s most prominent conversion therapy organisations, for over 20 years, before helping to shut it down in 2013, citing the incalculable harm the organisation had inflicted over its half-century-long history. He came out as gay two years later, in 2015.
The groups are not directly linked despite having similar names, but both movements drew from the same church network: Exodus Cry began as a prayer group at the International House of Prayer (IHOPKC) , and IHOPKC also hosted Desert Streams (the ministry of Andy Comiskey, a former Exodus International leader) Exodus Cry was listed as a “related tax-exempt organization” on IHOPKC’s 2018 filings, showing continued connection to the church through and long after the connected conversion therapy group Exodus International shut down in 2013, and Nolot served as an IHOPKC prayer leader until 2017.
While IHOPKC itself did not run a formal “conversion therapy” clinic, it hosted and promoted ministries that did:
“Same sex marriage is an unspeakable offense to God. It is sin. It is rebellion. It is wicked. It is vile. It is demonic.”
“I oppose homosexual marriage on the premise that it is an unspeakable offense to God and His design for marriage between a man and a woman.” “Ending my week praying for God’s mercy over America as more and more light is being shed about the modern‑day Holocaust of abortion. … To the ‘logic’ behind abortion – Hitler says hi.”
Melissa McCarthy’s “20 Days of Kindness” campaign initially included Exodus Cry as a beneficiary. Once online critics highlighted Nolot’s past tweets, McCarthy and HBO publicly withdrew support, with McCarthy stating: “We made a mistake … we backed a charity that … stands for everything that we do not.”
In December 2020, the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool also canceled an Exodus Cry–sponsored exhibit after Nolot’s homophobic and anti-abortion history became widely known.
Known Connections
National Centre on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE)
International House of Prayer Kansas City (IHOPKC)
External Links + Sources
https://youtu.be/HiV5mcXjOZc?si=QGjqb8P-wH6mR3hL
https://www.ynot.com/laila-mickelwaite-exodus-cry-pornhub/
https://prostasia.org/blog/how-exodus-cry-reinvented-the-white-slavery-moral-panic-for-a-modern-age/
https://www.them.us/story/anti-lgbtq-group-onlyfans-porn-ban
https://www.them.us/story/pray-away-conversion-therapy-netflix-documentary-review
https://similarlists.com/fashion-lifestyle/the-sound-of-freedom-controversy/