Exodus 90 is a paradigmatic case for the paradoxical perspectives in modern prayer apps: it seeks to address the malaises of late capitalism through spiritual practices while leaving unnamed the unjust realities that lead to this malaise. An examination of the demographics and statements of its promotors shows that this app-based program is perceived as a way to resist the comforts of the privileged in an uneven society. The program is exclusive in ways both implicit and explicit, and noting who is excluded reveals insights into one style of contemporary American male subjectivity.
This review will exclude the various pieces of reflective content provided to participants for their personal use, focusing instead on the ways that the program is described, both by the Exodus 90 team and by others. It will primarily cite the ‘most public’ descriptions: the home page and top menu pages on Exodus90.com, as well as their promotional content and publicly available testimonials. Using Foucault’s taxonomy of morality (moral code, morality of behaviors, ethical substance, mode of subjection, ethical work, and telos) to distinguish the various movements that men experience in the program, one can see more clearly how the program and its participants view these spiritual practices in relationship to their lifestyles and identities.
The challenges of promoting prayer and asceticism in contemporary culture are manifested in the fine line that Exodus 90 must walk: appealing to men who are used to comfort and who are willing to go to extremes for growth, while balancing that with the theological primacy of God’s initiative and an insistence on relationality that goes back to the earliest ascetic traditions of the Church. It must contend with the social factors of American life, such as consumer culture, valorization of authenticity, and the self-help marketplace, while attempting to portray a politically neutral yet authentically Catholic moral project.
Exodus 90 is an app-based Catholic men’s program whose stated goal is to aid participants in becoming “uncommonly free.” Three pillars of prayer, asceticism, and fraternity are the framework for this pursuit of freedom; this paper uses Exodus 90 as a case study revealing trends in the contemporary understanding of these three pillars and of spiritual freedom. It will review how Exodus 90 describes and promotes its program, integrating publicly available reflections on the program and using the lens of Foucault’s taxonomy of morality to explore points of contact between asceticism, ethics and subjectivity. It argues that by making an explicit appeal to discomfort in the spiritual life, Exodus 90 proposes a solution to consumer culture’s presumption of comfort, but must do so while engaging in the marketplace which encourages the pursuit of comfort that the program is meant to diminish.