Everything Happens with Kate Bowler

We live in a world that wants life to be fair. Work hard, make good choices, believe the right things—and things should turn out okay. But what happens when they don’t? In this live conversation, Kate talks with sociologist Mark Rank, author of The Random Factor, about the role of chance in our lives. From the lottery of birth to the timing of a missed phone call, Mark’s research shows how much of what we call success—or failure—comes down to forces we never chose.
SHOW NOTES:
Mark Rank, The Random Factor: How Chance and Luck Profoundly Shape Our Lives and the World Around Us

Mark Rank – Washington University in St. Louis

Christian Tomasetti et al., research on random mutations and cancer risk (Johns Hopkins)

Every Cure (founded by David Fajgenbaum)

Tour dates & tickets: katebowler.com/joyfulanyway

Watch the live conversation on YouTube

Join Kate Bowler on Substack for the season of Lent: katebowler.substack.com

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Kate Bowler invites two of her sharpest friends—Ross Douthat and Molly Worthen—to help her make sense of the current American religious landscape: why the long “decline” story may be shifting, why religious curiosity is popping up in unexpected places, and why the loudest forms of Christianity often feel more online, more political, and more embarrassing. Together they sort through what people mean by “Christian nationalism,” how much of it is symbolism versus policy, what weak institutions and internet incentives are doing to faith, and what still gives them hope for the church.
SHOW NOTES
Ross Douthat Bad Religion
Believe
The Deep Places

Molly Worthen Apostles of Reason
Spellbound

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Tour dates & tickets: katebowler.com/joyfulanyway

Watch the live conversation on YouTube

Join Kate Bowler on Substack for the season of Lent: katebowler.substack.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What does it mean to live well when danger, loss, and grief are never far away?
Kate Bowler talks with theologian, pastor, and writer Patrik Hagman, whose life has been shaped by profound loss—including the death of his father, his young son, and later his wife. Raised in Finland and now living in Sweden, Patrik brings a distinctly Nordic perspective on happiness—not as constant joy or self-optimization, but as contentment, trust, and gratitude that survives close proximity to fragility.
This is a conversation about living with fewer explanations and more honesty. About faith that refuses easy answers. About the strange clarity that comes when life gets very small and very bright at the same time. And about learning to be less surprised by tragedy—and more surprised by goodness.
If you’re trying to hold grief and gratitude at once, this episode is for you.
SHOW NOTES
Babettes Kulturhus (Linköping, Sweden) – community space for conversation, fika, and culture

Stanley Hauerwas – theologian often referenced in the conversation

Patrik Hagman – theologian, pastor, writer, and translator of Stanley Hauerwas’s work

Pre-order Joyful Anyway by Kate Bowler

Tour dates & tickets: katebowler.com/joyfulanyway

Watch the live conversation on YouTube

Join Kate Bowler on Substack for the season of Lent: katebowler.substack.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When many people hear the word Christian today, it comes with a lot of baggage—power, certainty, exclusion, and culture-war posturing. But there are still people of faith whose lives look nothing like that. People whose beliefs show up as love. Patient, persistent, deeply practical love.
Bishop Michael Curry is one of those people. A priest, pastor, and former Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Bishop Curry has spent a lifetime reminding people that Christianity is not an argument to win or an identity to defend—it’s a practice of love.
Recorded in front of a room full of pastors, this conversation is a kind of holy pep talk for anyone who feels worn down by a fractured, exhausting world.
Show notes:
Pre-order Joyful Anyway by Kate Bowler

Tour dates & tickets: katebowler.com/joyfulanyway

Watch the live conversation on YouTube

Kate Bowler on Substack: katebowler.substack.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What do we do when the world feels unbearably heavy—and no one is coming to save us?
To kick off Season 16 of Everything Happens, Kate Bowler sits down live with beloved author and truth-teller Anne Lamott for a luminous, funny, and deeply honest conversation about shame, joy, faith, aging, love, and what it means to keep showing up anyway.
Recorded in front of a packed house at the historic Carolina Theatre in Durham, Kate and Anne talk about the shame that follows us from childhood, the relief of putting down our armor, and the small, ordinary acts of love that still matter. This is a conversation for anyone who feels tender, overwhelmed, skeptical of easy answers—and still hungry for hope.
Show notes:
Anne Lamott on Substack

Pre-order Joyful Anyway by Kate Bowler

Tour dates & tickets: katebowler.com/joyfulanyway

Watch the live conversation on YouTube

Kate Bowler on Substack: katebowler.substack.com

Anne Lamott
Bird by Bird

Operating Instructions

Traveling Mercies

Good Writing (with Neil Allen)


Maggie Smith, "Good Bones"

Naomi Shihab Nye, “Gate A-4”

William Blake, “We are here to learn to endure the beams of love”

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