Kate Bowler

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A meditation on sense-making when there’s no sense to be made, on letting go when we can’t hold on, and on being unafraid even when we’re terrified.”—Lucy Kalanithi“Belongs on the shelf alongside other terrific books about this difficult subject, like Paul Kalanithi’s When Breath Becomes Air and Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal .”—Bill GatesNAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY REAL SIMPLEKate Bowler is a professor at Duke Divinity School with a modest Christian upbringing, but she specializes in the study of the prosperity gospel, a creed that sees fortune as a blessing from God and misfortune as a mark of God’s disapproval. At thirty-five, everything in her life seems to point toward “blessing.” She is thriving in her job, married to her high school sweetheart, and loves life with her newborn son.Then she is diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer.The prospect of her own mortality forces Kate to realize that she has been tacitly subscribing to the prosperity gospel, living with the conviction that she can control the shape of her life with “a surge of determination.” Even as this type of Christianity celebrates the American can-do spirit, it implies that if you “can’t do” and succumb to illness or misfortune, you are a failure. Kate is very sick, and no amount of positive thinking will shrink her tumors. What does it mean to die, she wonders, in a society that insists everything happens for a reason? Kate is stripped of this certainty only to discover that without it, life is hard but beautiful in a way it never has been before.Frank and funny, dark and wise, Kate Bowler pulls the reader deeply into her life in an account she populates affectionately with a colorful, often hilarious retinue of friends, mega-church preachers, relatives, and doctors. Everything Happens for a Reason tells her story, offering up her irreverent, hard-won observations on dying and the ways it has taught her to live.Praise for Everything Happens for a Reason “I fell hard and fast for Kate Bowler. Her writing is naked, elegant, and gripping—she’s like a Christian Joan Didion. I left Kate’s story feeling more present, more grateful, and a hell of a lot less alone. And what else is art for?” —Glennon Doyle, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Love Warrior and president of Together Rising

The bestselling author of Everything Happens for a Reason (And Other Lies I've Loved) asks, how do you move forward with a life you didn't choose? It's hard to give up on the feeling that the life you really want is just out of reach. A beach body by summer. A trip to Disneyland around the corner. A promotion on the horizon. Everyone wants to believe that they are headed toward good, better, best. But what happens when the life you hoped for is put on hold indefinitely?Kate Bowler believed that life was a series of unlimited choices, until she discovered, at age 35, that her body was wracked with cancer. In No Cure for Being Human, she searches for a way forward as she mines the wisdom (and absurdity) of today's "best life now" advice industry, which insists on exhausting positivity and on trying to convince us that we can out-eat, out-learn, and out-perform our humanness. We are, she finds, as fragile as the day we were born.With dry wit and unflinching honesty, Kate Bowler grapples with her diagnosis, her ambition, and her faith as she tries to come to terms with her limitations in a culture that says anything is possible. She finds that we need one another if we're going to tell the truth: Life is beautiful and terrible, full of hope and despair and everything in between--and there's no cure for being human.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A compassionate, intelligent, and wry series of Christian daily reflections on learning to live with imperfection in a culture of self-help that promotes endless progress, from the author of Everything Happens for a Reason and the executive producer of the Everything Happens podcast“Brilliant, hilarious, absurd, honest, hopeful, true-hearted, and good to the core.”—Sarah Bessey, editor of A Rhythm of Prayer and author of Jesus FeministIn Kate Bowler’s bestselling memoir Everything Happens for a Reason , readers witnessed the ways she, as a divinity-school professor and young mother, reckoned with a Stage IV cancer diagnosis; in her follow-up memoir, No Cure for Being Human , she unflinchingly and winsomely unpacked the ways that life becomes both hard and beautiful when we abandon certainty and the illusion of control in our lives. Now, in their first-ever devotional book, Kate Bowler and co-author Jessica Richie offer 40ish short spiritual reflections on how we can make sense of life not as a pursuit of endless progress but as a chronic condition. This book is a companion for when you want to stop feeling guilty that you’re not living your best life now.Written gently and with humor, Good Enough is permission for all those who need to hear that there are some things you can fix—and some things you can’t. And it’s okay that life isn’t always better. In these gorgeously written reflections, Bowler and Richie offer fresh imagination for how truth, beauty, and meaning can be discovered amid the chaos of life. Their words celebrate kindness, honesty, and interdependence in a culture that rewards ruthless individualism and blind optimism. Ultimately, in these pages we can rest in the encouragement to strive for what is possible today—while recognizing that though we are finite, the life in front of us can be beautiful.

Warm and witty blessings found within the struggles of our shared humanity, from the New York Times bestselling authors of Good EnoughBlessed are you, the strange duck.You with the very intense hobbies.Or the collection of movies or mugs or sneakers.You with the hometown or home team that makes you very, very proud.You, my dear, in all your intricacies . . . are a marvel.We live in a world that demands relentless perfection. Happy marriages and easy friendships. Bucket list-level adventures and matching family photos. But what if our actual lives don't feel very #blessed? Might our everyday existence be worthy of a blessing too? Even an average Tuesday?Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie offer creative, faith-based blessings that center gratitude and hope while acknowledging our real, messy lives. Formatted like a prayer book, The Lives We Actually Have is an oasis and a landing spot for weary souls, with blessings that focus on the full range of human moments: garbage days, lovely days, grief-stricken days, and even (especially) completely ordinary days. These heartfelt blessings are a chance to exhale when we feel everything from careworn to restless, devastated to bored. Let's have a reminder that we don't need to wait for perfect lives when we can bless the lives we actually have.

Witty, honest, and wise spiritual reflections that invite readers to embrace the bad, not just the good—from the three-time New York Times bestselling author of Everything Happens for a Reason (And Other Lies I’ve Loved)Kate Bowler believes that the cultural pressure to be cheerful and optimistic at all times has taken a toll on our faith. But what if we could find better language than forced positivity to express our hopes and our anxieties? Have a Beautiful, Terrible Day! is packed with bite-size reflections and action-oriented steps to help you get through the day, be it good, bad, or totally mediocre. This is a devotional for the rest of us—which is to say, the people who don’t have magical lives that always work out for the best. As she composed these meditations during a season of chronic pain, Bowler understands how every day can be an obstacle course. She encourages us to develop our capacity to feel the breadth of our experiences. The better we are at identifying our highs and lows, the more resilient we become.Like modern-day psalms, Bowler’s spiritual reflections look for the ways we can expand our capacity for courage, love, and honesty—while discovering divine moments with God. With bonus sections to use during the seasons of Advent and Lent, this is an easy book to read along with other people too. If you want to build your daily habit of spiritual attentiveness, this book is here to May all your days be lovely. But for those that aren’t, have a beautiful, terrible day!

From the New York Times bestselling author of Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved, a fascinating look at the world of Christian women celebritiesSince the 1970s, an important new figure has appeared on the center stage of American evangelicalism--the celebrity preacher's wife. Although most evangelical traditions bar women from ordained ministry, many women have carved out unofficial positions of power in their husbands' spiritual empires or their own ministries. The biggest stars--such as Beth Moore, Joyce Meyer, and Victoria Osteen--write bestselling books, grab high ratings on Christian television, and even preach. In this engaging book, Kate Bowler, an acclaimed historian of religion and the author of the bestselling memoir Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved, offers a sympathetic and revealing portrait of megachurch women celebrities, showing how they must balance the demands of celebrity culture and conservative, male-dominated faiths.Whether standing alone or next to their husbands, the leading women of megaministry play many parts: the preacher, the homemaker, the talent, the counselor, and the beauty. Boxed in by the high expectations of modern Christian womanhood, they follow and occasionally subvert the visible and invisible rules that govern the lives of evangelical women, earning handsome rewards or incurring harsh penalties. They must be pretty, but not immodest; exemplary, but not fake; vulnerable to sin, but not deviant. And black celebrity preachers' wives carry a special burden of respectability. But despite their influence and wealth, these women are denied the most important symbol of spiritual power--the pulpit.The story of women who most often started off as somebody's wife and ended up as everyone's almost-pastor, The Preacher's Wife is a compelling account of women's search for spiritual authority in the age of celebrity.

How have millions of American Christians come to measure spiritual progress in terms of their financial status and physical well-being? How has the movement variously called Word of Faith, Health and Wealth, Name It and Claim It, or simply prosperity gospel come to dominate much of our contemporary religious landscape? Kate Bowler's Blessed is the first book to fully explore the origins, unifying themes, and major figures of a burgeoning movement that now claims millions of followers in America. Bowler traces the roots of the prosperity gospel: from the touring mesmerists, metaphysical sages, pentecostal healers, business oracles, and princely prophets of the early 20th century; through mid-century positive thinkers like Norman Vincent Peale and revivalists like Oral Roberts and Kenneth Hagin; to today's hugely successful prosperity preachers. Bowler focuses on such contemporary figures as Creflo Dollar, pastor of Atlanta's 30,000-member World Changers Church International; Joel Osteen, known as "the smiling preacher," with a weekly audience of seven million; T. D. Jakes, named by Time magazine one of America's most influential new religious leaders; Joyce Meyer, evangelist and women's empowerment guru; and many others. At almost any moment, day or night, the American public can tune in to these preachers-on TV, radio, podcasts, and in their megachurches-to hear the message that God desires to bless them with wealth and health. Bowler offers an interpretive framework for scholars and general readers alike to understand the diverse expressions of Christian abundance as a cohesive movement bound by shared understandings and common goals.

The bestselling author and Duke University professor discovers the true magic of it appears when we least expect it—and even if we don’t feel happy, we can be joyful, anyway. Life aches. Joy is the cure. After surviving a stage-four cancer diagnosis, Kate Bowler knew she was supposed to be grateful. Alive. Blessed. But she still ached—for more connection, more surprise, less resentment on an ordinary day.So she went looking for joy. Not the toxic positivity kind. Not a 5-step plan. But the type that sneaks in unexpectedly, seemingly out of nowhere. A lemur sunbathing. A belly laugh at a funeral. A dive into the Atlantic with a shark wrangler.In Joyful, Anyway, Bowler takes us on a hilarious and tender journey through big questions and small delights. With wry wit and deep honesty, she explores how joy can surprise us even in the middle of pain, boredom, and longing.This is not a book about fixing your life. It is about how we can all find more—feel more—by making room for small extraordinary moments. For anyone who has ever felt stuck, who is achy for meaning, who feels undone by loss, who feels that joy is just out of reach, who wants, simply, to have more fun, Joyful Anyway is a delicious, insightful tour through the questions that sit in the deepest part of our souls. It proves that for every time we Is this it? Joy will there is more.

PALAVRAS SINCERAS QUE PODEM TRANSFORMAR O SEU DIAVivemos num mundo que exige perfeição implacável. Casamentos felizes e amizades sem defeitos. Grandes aventuras e momentos alegres o tempo todo. Mas e se a sua vida real não parecer muito abençoada? Será que uma vida normal também merece uma benção?Kate Bowler e Jessica Richie reuniram uma série de bênçãos inspiradoras e baseadas na Bíblia, centradas em valores como a gratidão e a esperança enquanto reconhecem nossas vidas reais estão distantes da perfeição.Este livro deve servir como um ponto de apoio, de lembrança da fé, e um repouso para almas cansadas, com bênçãos que se concentram em toda a gama de momentos dias ruins, dias adoráveis, dias de luto e até (especialmente) dias completamente normais.As bênçãos aqui contidas podem servir como um refúgio nos momentos em que nos sentimos inquietos, devastados ou desanimados.Lembremo-nos de que não precisamos esperar por uma vida perfeita quando podemos abençoar as vidas que realmente temos.

'A deeply moving everyday masterpiece. I loved it' Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love 'A delight from start to finish, Joyful, Anyway embodies the mix of pleasure and aching that makes us human' Katherine May, author of Wintering Life aches. Joy is the cure. After surviving a stage-four cancer diagnosis, Kate Bowler knew she was supposed to be grateful. Alive. Blessed. But she still ached – for more connection, more surprise, less resentment on an ordinary day. So she went looking for joy. Not the toxic positivity kind. Not a five-step plan. But the type that sneaks in unexpectedly, seemingly out of nowhere. In Joyful, Anyway, Bowler takes us on a hilarious and tender journey through big questions and small delights. With wry wit and deep honesty, she explores how joy can surprise us even in the middle of pain, boredom and longing. This is not a book about fixing your life. It is about how we can all find more and feel more, by making room for small extraordinary moments. For anyone who has ever felt stuck, who is aching for meaning, who feels undone by loss, who feels that joy is just out of reach, who wants, simply, to have more fun, Joyful, Anyway is a delicious, insightful tour through the questions that sit in the deepest part of our souls. It proves that for every time we Is this it? Joy will there is more.