This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
For most Christians who observe Lent, the 40-day period before Easter is a time of prayer and fasting, often from an indulgence such as sugar, alcohol, or time on social media. But for some young men, a month and a half of abstention from creature comforts is not enough. Catholic men across the country are spending three months taking cold showers, praying for an hour each day, and giving up sugar, alcohol, and excess screen time all at once.
Aidan Kunath, a 30-year-old dad from Cincinnati, has been doing the Exodus 90 challenge with a group of guys for four years now. He heard about it from a friend and decided to try it out with other men from the International Order of Alhambra, a Catholic fraternal group of which he is a member. This year, 14 men are doing the challenge with him, several of whom have done it all four years as well. The point of the program, Aidan told The Daily Wire, is “trying to live a life intentionally that opens you up to a better relationship with God.”
Jamie Baxter founded Exodus 90 in 2015 after a literal mountaintop experience in college. His parents converted to Catholicism when he was a child, and his father inspired Baxter at the end of a grueling hike to pursue the faith in a powerful way. He founded Exodus 90 so men can “become who they are, more like who they have been created to be by their Heavenly Father.”
Men across America are looking for direction. When Netflix documentaries and countless op-eds are decrying the toxic “manosphere,” yet the broader culture seems to want to dismiss men or turn them into women, Exodus 90 may be more relevant than ever.
So what is it, exactly? The program consists of 90 days of prayer, fellowship, and asceticism — a time of giving up easy, comfortable things to leave more space to focus on faith.
“It is normal for men to be distracted, addicted, and enslaved by so many things today,” the program’s website says in a mission statement. “Alcohol. Pornography. Social media. Sports. Gambling. Work. Comparison. Achievement. Wealth. Legacy. It is so normal, in fact, that society’s stereotypes of men are often associated with the very idols that plague them. What is uncommon in our time is men who are free.”
Jamie’s brother, Doyle Baxter, head of product at Exodus 90, credits the program with bringing him out of substance abuse and back to faith. What he initially saw as a “creative, entrepreneurial endeavor” became a transformative experience for him in 2017.
“My own Exodus experience is very much one of coming to the program seeking its freedom from the pharaohs who lorded over me and ultimately finding it,” he told The Daily Wire.
The Exodus 90 site claims that as many as 250,000 men in 80 countries have gone through the program. Doyle says that although almost 90% of the participants are Catholic, participants come from various backgrounds. One of his favorite groups that he has been in included two Catholics, two protestants, two atheists, and two agnostics. “It remains probably the most powerful fraternal experience I’ve had,” he says. “Everybody was approaching that with their own different and unique perspectives.”
Participants pay for an app, which has two tiers, with the basic tier offering scripture readings and reflections, guidance through Exodus 90 and other seasonal challenges, and spiritual guides and resources. The website offers student discounts, a contact for those who cannot afford the $90/year basic fee, and an offer of your money back “if you do not experience greater freedom.”
To achieve that freedom, the men will give up a lot, including “snacking between meals,” “unnecessary purchases,” and eating meat on Wednesdays and Fridays.
“The one that gets a big headline for a lot of people is cold showers,” Aidan says. “You start in January, and we’re in Cincinnati, so the water’s pretty cold. That’s the one that can really drag on you. The big thing I emphasize with my guys, though, is the disciplines are only there to build this relationship with God. They’re closing things to open up the door to your relationship with God.”
There can be exceptions to the rules, though. “You’re going to run into situations where you’re gonna have to break them not to be socially weird,” Aidan says. “If you go out with your wife to celebrate something, don’t just make her get a dessert and stare at her judgmentally.” Aidan says otherwise slipping up on the restrictions is not a big deal, but the most important thing is to get that full hour of prayer.
Strict or not, these rules are not about self-help.
“One of the things that is so important to understand about Exodus is that from the outside, it’s really easy to have a straw-man perspective of what we’re up to,” Doyle says. “Especially in the men’s space today, there can be this perception that you are just doing hard things because they’re hard. We try to go much deeper than what might be apparent on the surface. We don’t talk about discipline as much as we talk about asceticism. We’re talking about taking up practices that are not primarily about becoming a more disciplined person; they’re about being a more Christlike person.”
Importantly, this challenge isn’t meant to be done alone. The program encourages daily check-ins with one partner in the group and weekly meetings with the whole cohort (the official site recommends six to eight people).
“I think that’s a big thing that’s missing from Catholic men and fraternity, the idea of men in community,” Aidan says. “I don’t think there are a lot of opportunities where we can actually talk to each other in that serious way.”
He says the men in his group don’t just talk about the challenge, but about their marriages, their prayer lives, and other personal subjects. And there are fight club rules: “One big dynamic of the group is whatever is shared within the group, you can’t talk about outside of the group,” Aidan says. “I think having that opens up a lot of guys.”
Getting through the time-consuming, intensive program is no small feat, which is why, at the end of Lent every year, Aidan and his group start celebrating at midnight on Easter morning. After Easter Vigil at their local parish, they throw a party at Aidan’s brother’s house, complete with cereal, sweets, and beer. Aidan’s treat of choice is Cap’N Crunch Crunch Berries.
Already looking forward to next year, Aidan says his group is unique in the number of men who have done the program year after year. He says a lot of guys see Exodus 90 like basic training: a tough exercise that you complete just once. “But based on my experience with previous Exoduses — and I think the human experience, right? — it’s very easy if you’re not guarded to lose that prayer practice pretty quickly,” he says. “Exodus, at least for us, refreshes it.”
