![]() ![]() ![]() Though Mennonites are best known by their bonnets and horse-drawn buggies, they are, for the most part, plainclothes capitalists like the rest of us. Growing up in the 1980s on the prairies of Manitoba, Canada, an area largely settled by Mennonites, I had been taught in my Anabaptist Bible camp that there were few things closer to God’s heart than pacifism, simplicity and the ability to compliment your neighbor’s John Deere Turbo Combine without envy. If there was a river running through the sanctuary, an eagle flying freely in the auditorium or an enormous, spinning statue of a golden globe, I was there. I ruined family vacations by insisting on being dropped off at the showiest megachurch in town. I went on pilgrimage with the faith healer Benny Hinn and 900 tourists to retrace Jesus’ steps in the Holy Land and see what people would risk for the chance at their own miracle. I sat in people’s living rooms and heard about how they never would have dreamed of owning this home without the encouragement they heard on Sundays. I held hands with people in wheelchairs being prayed for by celebrities known for their miracle touch. I spent 10 years interviewing televangelists with spiritual formulas for how to earn God’s miracle money. Put simply, the prosperity gospel is the belief that God grants health and wealth to those with the right kind of faith. I am a historian of the American prosperity gospel. I recently wrote a book called “Blessed.” Then he walked me from my office to the hospital to start what was left of my new life.īut one of my first thoughts was also Oh, God, this is ironic. I waited until he arrived so we could wrap our arms around each other and say the things that must be said. I did the things you might expect of someone whose world has suddenly become very small. The stomach cramps I was suffering from were not caused by a faulty gallbladder, but by a massive tumor. ON a Thursday morning a few months ago, I got a call from my doctor’s assistant telling me that I have Stage 4 cancer. ![]() She lives in Durham, North Carolina, with her family, continues to teach do-gooders at Duke Divinity School, and stockpiles anecdotes about the hidden benefits of being from the middle of Canada.Durham, N.C. Kate’s work has received wide-spread media attention from NPR, The Today Show, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the TED Stage, and Fresh Air with Terry Gross. Her latest book, No Cure For Being Human (and Other Truths I Need to Hear), grapples with her diagnosis, her ambition, and her faith as she tries to come to terms with limitations in a culture that promises anything is possible. On her popular podcast, Everything Happens, Kate speaks with people like Malcolm Gladwell, Matthew McConaughey, and Anne Lamott about what wisdom and truth they’ve uncovered during difficult circumstances. Whether they stand alone or beside their husbands, they are leading women who play many parts: faithful wife, spiritual authority, and Hollywood celebrity. Her third book, The Preacher’s Wife: The Precarious Power of Evangelical Women Celebrities follows the rise of celebrity Christian women in American evangelicalism. She penned the New York Times bestselling memoir, Everything Happens for a Reason (and Other Lies I’ve Loved), which tells the story of her struggle to understand the personal and intellectual dimensions of the American belief that all tragedies are tests of character. At age 35, she was unexpectedly diagnosed with Stage IV cancer, causing her to think in different terms about the research and beliefs she had been studying. The result was the book, Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel, which received widespread media attention and a lot of puns about being #blessed. She researched and traveled across Canada and the United States interviewing megachurch leaders and televangelists and everyday believers about how they make spiritual meaning out of the good and bad in their lives. ![]() In her twenties, she became obsessed with writing the first history of the movement called the “prosperity gospel”-which promises that God will reward you with health and wealth if you have the right kind of faith. She studies the cultural stories we tell ourselves about success, suffering, and whether (or not) we’re capable of change. Kate Bowler, PhD is a New York Times bestselling author, podcast host, and a professor at Duke University. ![]()
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