A design reference
Three ways to build
Exploitative, ethical, redemptive: what each design choice takes from people, keeps for them, or gives up for them.
Every deep dive in this reference ends with the same question in three forms. What would an exploitative product do here? What would an ethical one do? And what would a redemptive one do: what would it give up for the good of the person using it?
Where the frame comes from
The three ways are the work of Praxis, which teaches them to founders and funders. In their words, the exploitative way is to “take all you can get”, the ethical way is to “do things right”, and the redemptive way is “creative restoration through sacrifice”: not “I win, you lose” or “I win, you win”, but “I sacrifice, we win”. Their playbook chapter on products asks for “impact/market fit, not merely product/market fit”. The same language is spreading beyond Praxis, for example in Seed’s Redemptive Design in Australia.
We use the frame with gratitude and credit. Its application to Bible and faith interfaces, and the reflection below, are ours; Praxis has not reviewed them, and this reference is not affiliated with Praxis.
Why it fits a design reference
Most design guidance stops at the ethical floor: accessibility, privacy law, honest copy, no dark patterns. That floor matters, and much of this reference’s research is there to hold it. But a faith app can keep every rule and still treat people as engagement. The redemptive question names something the rules cannot: a cost the maker chooses to bear. A prayer app that collects no personal data gives up analytics. A reading plan that waits gives up the retention a streak buys. An assistant that sends someone to their pastor ends its own session.
The frame also shapes this reference’s ten principles for spiritual apps: each names what it asks the maker to give up, and the three ways are read there for apps whose subject is God, where the exploitative temptation is not only to use people but to use God’s name.
How we understand “redemptive”
Redemption is God’s work. Scripture calls the Lord “your Redeemer” (Isaiah 44:24), and it is God who reconciles “to Himself all things” through the cross (Colossians 1:20). No app redeems anyone. We use the word for a way of making, never for a product, and we try not to call any feature “redemptive” as if it accomplished what only God does.
Yet we are invited to take part. God “gave us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:18), and Paul calls himself and Apollos “God’s fellow workers” (1 Corinthians 3:9). Praxis puts it this way: God has acted “so that we can participate with him in the restoration of all things”. Design is one of the places where that participation is practised or refused.
The pattern is Christ’s self-giving. He “emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant” (Philippians 2:7), and “did not come to be served, but to serve” (Mark 10:45). David would not offer to God offerings “that cost me nothing” (2 Samuel 24:24). A redemptive choice is recognisable by what it costs the one who makes it, not by how it is described.
The exploitative way has a biblical name. Ezekiel spoke against shepherds who “feed themselves” instead of the flock (Ezekiel 34:2). Faith products are a kind of shepherding: they hold people’s prayers, doubts and hours. Using that trust for growth targets is the oldest failure of religious leadership in a new medium.
The ethical way is good, and not the end. Jesus told his disciples that after doing all they were commanded, they should say: “we have only done our duty” (Luke 17:10). Keeping the rules is duty. Love goes further, and it usually costs something.
Limits and cautions
- Not a ranking of companies or people. The three ways describe choices. The same product can be exploitative in one place and redemptive in another, and every deep dive shows both.
- Not a claim of results. Calling a choice redemptive does not mean it formed anyone. Whether people flourish is an empirical and pastoral question; see Plant and water; leave the growth to God.
- Not an exclusive vocabulary. Praxis themselves note that theological language can feel exclusive. The ethical floor is shared with everyone; the redemptive question is offered as an invitation, also to readers who do not share the faith behind it.
- Different traditions, different weight. Christians hold different convictions about human participation in God’s work. We use the word modestly and welcome correction.
How to use it in a review
For any screen, write one sentence for each way. Then ask of the redemptive one: who bears its cost, and would we still choose it if no one noticed? The decision worksheet has room for the answer.