Kate Bowler is a Canadian academic and writer from

Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749, ...

Manitoba , image_map = Manitoba in Canada 2.svg , map_alt = Map showing Manitoba's location in the centre of Southern Canada , Label_map = yes , coordinates = , capital = Winn ...

. Bowler is currently an associate professor of the history of Christianity in North America at

Duke Divinity School The Divinity School at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, is one of ten graduate or professional schools within Duke University. It is also one of thirteen seminaries founded and supported by the United Methodist Church. It has 39 regular ...

. She is the author of ''Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel'' (

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, 2013) and ''Everything Happens for a Reason (and Other Lies I've Loved)'' (

Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...

, 2018), which was a ''New York Times'' hardcover nonfiction best seller. In her podcast, ''Everything Happens'', she talks with others about their dark times and what they've learned.

Biography

Bowler was born in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, where her father was pursuing a PhD in History at King's College London. She spent most of her childhood in Winnipeg, Manitoba and received her Bachelor of Arts at

Macalester College Macalester College () is a private liberal arts college in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Founded in 1874, Macalester is exclusively an undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 2,174 students in the fall of 2018 from 50 U.S. states, four U.S te ...

St Paul, Minnesota Saint Paul (abbreviated St. Paul) is the capital of the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of Ramsey County. Situated on high bluffs overlooking a bend in the Mississippi River, Saint Paul is a regional business hub and the center ...

and her Master of Arts in Religion at

Yale Divinity School Yale Divinity School (YDS) is one of the twelve graduate and professional schools of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Congregationalist theological education was the motivation at the founding of Yale, and the professional school has ...

. She completed her PhD at Duke University which focuses on the history of

Prosperity gospel Prosperity theology (sometimes referred to as the prosperity gospel, the health and wealth gospel, the gospel of success, or seed faith) is a religious belief among some Protestant Christians that financial blessing and physical well-being are ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. Raised by parents who worked in academia and with a research interest in

Father Christmas Father Christmas is the traditional English name for the personification of Christmas. Although now known as a Christmas gift-bringer, and typically considered to be synonymous with Santa Claus, he was originally part of a much older and unrela ...

, her family had a strong tradition of celebrating Christmas. Her monograph published in 2020,''The Preacher’s Wife: Women and Power in American Megaministry'', was a product of the sabbatical grant for researchers from The Louisville Institute.

Personal life

Bowler married Toban Penner, her high school classmate, in 2002. Together they have a son, Zach. In 2015, she was diagnosed with Stage IV cancer with no family history of cancer. Her memoir, ''Everything Happens for a Reason (and Other Lies I've Loved)'', was published in 2018, and the book was listed as hardcover nonfiction best seller on ''New York Times'' for 5 weeks.

Writings

*
Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel
'' New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. *
Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved.
' New York: Random House, 2018. *
The Preacher's Wife: The Precarious Power of Evangelical Women Celebrities
'' Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2020. *
No Cure for Being Human (And Other Truths I Need to Hear)
'' Penguin, 2021.

References

External links

* 21st-century Canadian historians Canadian historians of religion Canadian women historians Duke Divinity School faculty Duke University alumni Living people Macalester College alumni Writers from Durham, North Carolina Yale Divinity School alumni Writers from Winnipeg Year of birth missing (living people) {{Canada-historian-stub