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

Kate Bowler is a professor at Duke Divinity School who specializes in studying the prosperity gospel—a belief system that interprets fortune as God's blessing and misfortune as God's disapproval. At thirty-five, her life appears to embody this theology: she has a successful career, a marriage to her high school sweetheart, and a newborn son. Then she is diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer. Facing her own mortality, Bowler recognizes that she has internalized the prosperity gospel's worldview, believing she could control her life through determination. This form of Christianity, while celebrating American self-reliance, suggests that illness and misfortune indicate personal failure. No amount of positive thinking will shrink her tumors. Bowler grapples with what it means to die in a society insisting everything happens for a reason. Stripped of this certainty, she discovers that life without it is difficult but beautiful in unexpected ways. Her account includes observations from friends, family, religious leaders, and medical professionals, offering reflections on dying and what it has taught her about living.