54 pages 1 hour read

Kate Bowler

Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2018

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Further Reading & Resources

Further Reading: Literature

No Cure for Being Human: And Other Truths I Need to Hear by Kate Bowler (2021)

This is Bowler’s sequel to Everything Happens for a Reason, which unpacks what Bowler argues are the lies prosperity gospel adherents tell themselves. Bowler seeks to impart dependable theological truths.

Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel by Kate Bowler (2018)

Bowler completed this history of the prosperity gospel prior to her cancer diagnosis; in the text, she uncovers the historical roots of the movement and links it to the American mindset of positive thinking.

Further Reading: Beyond Literature (Nonfiction)

Death, the Prosperity Gospel and Me” by Kate Bowler (The New York Times online, 2016)

Bowler addresses the tenets of the prosperity gospel in regard to whether they are helpful in her struggle with colon cancer.

Video & Podcast Resources

Dying in This Culture.” YouTube, uploaded by Kate Bowler (2018)

A brief video in which Bowler, with a cameo by her son, Zach, discusses her ambivalent feelings after her cancer diagnosis and how those feelings are culturally rooted.

Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved.” YouTube, uploaded by Ted Talk (2019)

Bowler recalls the experience of learning she had Stage IV cancer and her spiritual and theological response.