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.

Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel

Bowler, Kate

Religion & Spirituality

Oxford University Press

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 Gates NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY REAL SIMPLE Kate 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

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

Random House]

Random House Trade Paperbacks

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 New York Times bestselling 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 Feminist In 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&nbsp;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.

Good Enough: 40ish Devotionals for a Life of Imperfection

Richie, Jessica

Convergent Books

Warm and witty blessings found within the struggles of our shared humanity, from the New York Times bestselling authors of Good Enough Blessed 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 weactuallyhave.

The Lives We Actually Have: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days

No Cure for Being Human: (and Other Truths I Need to Hear)

Product Description 
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • 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?\n“Kate Bowler is the only one we can trust to tell us the truth.”—Glennon Doyle, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Untamed\nIt’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? \nKate 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. \nWith 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. 
 Review 
“With grace, wisdom, and humor, Kate Bowler encourages us to cut back on self-help Kool-Aid and teaches us what it means to be human.” 
—Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again 
“Kate Bowler has paid through the nose to become a writer of uncommon spiritual wisdom, coupled with an amazing sense of humor and a heart full of love. She fills me with hope.” 
—Anne Lamott, New York Times bestselling author of Dusk, Light, Dawn 
“Kate Bowler refuses to jump on the bandwagon of toxic positivity. Instead, she leads us to a truer truth: The work is unfinishable, and so be it.” 
—Kelly Corrigan, New York Times bestselling author, host of the podcast Kelly Corrigan Wonders and PBS’s Tell Me More with Kelly Corrigan“Kate Bowler is the rare author who can explore difficult subjects with both breathtaking honesty and lightheartedness. She brings profound insight and love to the human experience.” 
—Gretchen Rubin, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Project 
“In a culture that asks us to constantly strive and improve, Kate Bowler recognizes that our own pain is neither an aberration nor an opportunity but a fact of life. There is nobody on earth who sees our humanity quite like Kate Bowler.” 
—Nora McInerny, creator and host of the podcast Terrible, Thanks for Asking\n“Those in need of a wake-up call will find it in this breathtaking narrative. . . . Bowler’s strong faith is present throughout, though the writing, refreshingly, never feels overtly religious. . . . Her convictions underscore the importance of living life on one’s own terms.” 
—Publishers Weekly (starred review) 
“With hilarity and courage, Bowler tells the story of being diagnosed with stage-four cancer at age thirty-five, which forced her to re-examine the way she (and we) live our lives. This is a brilliant examination of what happens when everything you assumed is suddenly in question.” 
—Lori Gottlieb, bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone 
 About the Author 
Kate Bowler is an associate professor of the history of Christianity in North America at Duke Divinity School. She completed her undergraduate degree at Macalester College, received a master’s of religion from Yale Divinity School, and a PhD at Duke University. She is the author of 
Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel, the 
New York Times bestselling memoir 
Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved, and 
The Preac

No Cure for Being Human: (And Other Truths I Need to Hear)

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • 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?\n“Kate Bowler is the only one we can trust to tell us the truth.”—Glennon Doyle, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Untamed\nIt’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?\nKate Bowler believed that life was a series of unlimited choices, until she discovered, at age thirty-five, 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.\nWith 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.

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?&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; If you want to build your daily habit of spiritual attentiveness, this book is here to say: May all your days be lovely. But for those that aren't, have a beautiful, terrible day!

Have a Beautiful, Terrible Day!: Daily Meditations for the Ups, Downs & In-Betweens

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 celebrities
Since 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.

The Preacher's Wife: The Precarious Power of Evangelical Women Celebrities

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

Princeton University Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Bowler, Kate. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Bowler, Kate

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Bowler, Kate. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel

Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel

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

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

Good Enough: 40ish Devotionals for a Life of Imperfection

The Lives We Actually Have: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days

No Cure for Being Human: (And Other Truths I Need to Hear)

No Cure for Being Human: (And Other Truths I Need to Hear)

Have a Beautiful, Terrible Day!: Daily Meditations for the Ups, Downs & In-Betweens

The Preacher's Wife: The Precarious Power of Evangelical Women Celebrities