Everything Happens Studios
297 episodes listed below
Kate Bowler talks with theologians, poets, and writers about surviving what doesn't resolve.
Everything Happens with Kate Bowler is an interview podcast hosted by Kate Bowler, a Duke Divinity School historian who studies the prosperity gospel and has lived with stage IV cancer. Each episode is a long-form conversation with a theologian, poet, journalist, sociologist, or writer about suffering, faith, grief, and the limits of self-improvement culture. Recurring subjects include chronic illness and pain, prayer and Christian doubt, the shape of American religion and Christian nationalism, and how joy or humor persists alongside loss. The show favors sustained, reflective dialogue over advice-giving, often returning to Kate's own cancer diagnosis and academic background as a throughline.
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Everything Happens with Kate Bowler is built almost entirely around one-on-one interviews, with occasional multi-guest panel conversations, run by host Kate Bowler, a Duke Divinity School professor and historian of American Christianity. Bowler's own experience with stage IV cancer and her research into the prosperity gospel shape the show's recurring question: what do people actually do with the belief that things happen for a reason? Guests skew toward theologians, poets, clergy, academics, and writers rather than lifestyle or wellness figures, including Rowan Williams (former Archbishop of Canterbury), poet-priest Malcolm Guite, Bishop Michael Curry, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, historian Molly Worthen, and sociologist Mark Rank. Episodes move through chronic illness, grief after the death of a child or loved one, depression, prayer, and the appeal and danger of Christian nationalism, often anchored to a guest's book, poem, or research. Some conversations pair Bowler with writers processing their own illness or loss, such as Suleika Jaouad, while others bring in comedic or pop-culture guests like Rhett McLaughlin and Jenny Lawson to discuss absurdity and survival. The tone is consistently reflective and literary, drawing on poets like George Herbert, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Seamus Heaney alongside theological and sociological research. The show is produced with Lemonada Media and includes sponsor reads and cross-promotion for other Lemonada podcasts. Listeners drawn to the show are typically dealing with illness, grief, or religious doubt themselves, or are interested in theology and literature applied to hard questions rather than self-help formulas. Episodes run roughly 35 to 55 minutes and are structured as extended dialogue rather than solo monologue or narrative storytelling.
Made for: People navigating serious illness, grief, or religious doubt who want reflective, literary conversation rather than self-help formulas.
What sets it apart: Hosted by a historian of the prosperity gospel who is herself living with stage IV cancer, pairing that lived experience with theologians and poets rather than the wellness-influencer guests common in the personal-growth category.
Are you living your best life now? Not always? This is a podcast for you. Duke Professor Kate Bowler is an expert in the stories we tell about success and failure, suffering and happiness. She had Stage IV cancer. Then she didn’t. And since then, all she wants to do is talk to funny and wise people about how to live with the knowledge that, well, everything happens. Find her online at @katecbowler. Sales and Distribution by Lemonada Media https://lemonadamedia.com/
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · June 2026
Everything Happens gives Society & Culture listeners careful, humane conversations about suffering, faith, justice, death, joy, and survival.
Everything Happens with Kate Bowler sits in Society & Culture as a conversation show for people trying to make sense of life when it refuses to behave.
Kate Bowler takes you from how bodies die to a man-flu joke without losing the thread.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A tender conversation about making plans for joy without pretending certainty.
Kate holds the conversation in a way that feels attentive and unforced, tracing how hope and dread can sit side by side without resolving neatly. The discussion keeps returning to plans, postponement, and the stubborn urge to imagine something beautiful anyway.
Prayer is treated as a way of sounding depth, not offering certainty.
Malcolm Guite reflects on the 15 sonnets on the Stations of the Cross and on how Jesus' repeated falls shape the poems' attention to bruising, depression, and the difficulty of naming pain.
A clear look at civic trust, opportunity, and the unevenness of life.
The episode sets Sweden and Finland against the American habit of treating opportunity as the main promise, not equal outcomes. It keeps its footing in public institutions, voting, press freedom, and the old expectation that a person should get a fair shot if they work hard and…
A measured, thoughtful look at Christian nationalism, survey data, and the uneasy overlap of faith and power.
Kate steers a careful conversation about American religion, and the best thing about it is how plainly it keeps asking what Christian nationalism even means. The episode treats the label with suspicion, which feels right, because in public debate it can get inflated fast.
A steady conversation about happiness, illness, caregiving, and the small mercies that make endurance possible.
Kate Bowler and Patrik Hagman treat happiness as something tested by illness, caregiving, faith, and the strain of living with a child who has cancer.
A reflective Christian conversation about faith, grace, and love over performance.
Kate Bowler's conversation with Bishop Michael Curry centers on a Christian faith that resists power, exclusion, nationalism, and hard certainty. Curry keeps returning to a Jesus-centered vision shaped by love, grace, forgiveness, and mercy rather than performance.
A tender conversation about suffering, gratitude, and resilience.
This episode settles into the plain, difficult facts of being human: love, shame, illness, and the stubborn habit of hoping anyway. It keeps returning to bodies that fail, to cancer and stroke, and to the way gratitude can still appear after life has already taken plenty.
A serious, humane conversation about mercy, power, and the structures that shape justice.
Kate Bowler frames the piece around mercy, and Bryan Stevenson responds by tracing how money, race, and silence can shape outcomes in court. He points to a system that can treat people better when they are rich and guilty than when they are poor and innocent, and he ties that…
Emma Gannon's Success Myth Diaries series questions money, fame, and midlife success scripts.
Reflective systems for sustainable academic life.
Community talk with spirituality, books, healing, and backbone.
Julie Louis-Dreyfus promotes the Mill food recycler as an easy solution to reduce food waste by turning scraps into nutrient-rich grounds for gardens or farms.
Kate Bowler and Suleika Jaouad frame the episode around Rilke’s line about “living the questions,” then push into what happens when chronic pain, ambition, and uncertainty do not resolve on schedule.
Prayer becomes a plummet.
Bad luck is the point here.
What makes Christian nationalism slippery?
Happiness gets stripped down.
Christian is a bruised word here.
Love is what remains when the act drops.
Julie Louis-Dreyfus promotes the Mill food recycler as an easy solution to reduce food waste by turning scraps into nutrient-rich grounds for gardens or farms.
Julie Louis-Dreyfus promotes the Mill food recycler as an easy solution to reduce food waste by turning scraps into nutrient-rich grounds for gardening or farming.
The ache here is legal, and it is painfully concrete.
Kate starts with palliative care.
Kate Bowler interviews guests about navigating life's ups and downs, blending personal stories with insights on resilience and happiness.
Kate starts with joy, the kind that still manages to show up.
Creativity shows up here in messy piles.
Kate Bowler reflects on the Advent story, contrasting commercialized love with God's vulnerable love shown in the birth of Jesus.
A podcast exploring how to live with life's ups and downs through conversations with wise and funny people.
Kate Bowler discusses the complexity of joy during the Christmas season, especially for those experiencing grief or hardship, and introduces the tradition of Blue Christmas services.
Kate Bowler interviews funny and wise people about living with life's ups and downs, drawing from her own experience with Stage IV cancer.
Kate Bowler interviews guests about living with life's ups and downs, blending personal stories with cultural insights.
A podcast exploring how to live with life's ups and downs through conversations with wise and funny people.
Kate Bowler interviews wise and funny people about living with life's ups and downs, drawing from her own experience with Stage IV cancer.
Kate Bowler interviews wise and funny people about living with life's ups and downs.
Kate Bowler interviews funny and wise people about living with life's ups and downs, drawing from her own experience with Stage IV cancer.
Kate Bowler interviews guests about living with life's ups and downs, blending personal stories with cultural commentary.
Kate Bowler interviews wise and funny people about living with life's ups and downs, drawing from her own experience with Stage IV cancer.
Kate Bowler interviews guests about navigating life's ups and downs, blending personal stories with philosophical insights.
Kate Bowler interviews wise and funny people about living with life's ups and downs, drawing from her own experience with Stage IV cancer.
Kate Bowler interviews wise and funny people about living with life's ups and downs, drawing from her own experience with Stage IV cancer.
Kate Bowler interviews guests about navigating life's ups and downs, drawing on her own experience with Stage IV cancer.
Kate Bowler interviews wise and funny people about living with life's ups and downs, drawing from her own experience with Stage IV cancer.
Kate Bowler interviews guests about living with life's ups and downs, blending personal stories with cultural insights.
Kate Bowler, a Duke professor and cancer survivor, hosts conversations with funny and wise people about living with life's ups and downs.