Everything Happens with Kate Bowler

Suleika Jaouad, writer and speaker who chronicles illness and recovery, joins to wrestle with living in unresolved questions. They explore ambition versus exhaustion, chronic illness and the limits of self-improvement. The conversation highlights quiet shifts, refusing the waiting room of life, and finding small joys without pretending everything can be fixed.

Malcolm Guite, poet, Anglican priest, and theologian, offers brief reflection on prayer as attention and poetry as a language for ambivalence. He traces how poems taught him to pray and how imagination, liturgy, and seasons shape spiritual rhythm. The conversation explores depression, creative recovery, and why faith can hold contradiction without forced resolution.

Mark Rank, sociologist and author of The Random Factor, studies how luck and chance shape lives. He explores the lottery of birth, lifetime risk of poverty, and how timing and random events alter outcomes. The conversation examines meritocracy myths, why societies differ in social safety nets, and virtues that come from accepting randomness.

Molly Worthen, historian of American evangelicalism, and Ross Douthat, NYT columnist on religion and culture, join the conversation. They explore why the long narrative of religious decline may be shifting. They discuss rising spiritual curiosity among young people, the tension between online performative Christianity and parish-based renewal, and how Christian nationalism shows up as symbolism versus policy.

Patrik Hagman, a Finnish-born theologian and pastor now in Sweden, speaks from a life marked by deep loss. He explores Nordic contentment versus self-help happiness. He reflects on honest faith that lives with mystery. He describes parenting, grief, surprising moments of joy, and learning to hold sorrow and gratitude together.

Bishop Michael Curry, an Episcopal priest known for preaching love as lived practice, speaks about Christianity as patient, practical care. He shares stories of ordinary people serving faithfully around the world. The conversation highlights quiet, persistent acts of service, contrasts culture-war postures with tenderness, and celebrates a faith that smells like compassion.

Anne Lamott, beloved bestselling author known for candid memoirs and books on faith and writing. She talks about aging and late-life love with humor. She explores shame and the armor we wear, small practices like sobriety and “ploppage,” and the power of showing up physically for others. The conversation celebrates radical hope, small acts of tenderness, and receiving joy.

Minka Kelly, actress and memoirist known for Friday Night Lights and Tell Me Everything, reflects on a chaotic childhood and the path to healing. She talks about friendship as chosen family. She explores anger as a signal of crossed boundaries. She recounts reconciling with her mother after illness and finding softness after trauma.

Barbara Brown Taylor, Episcopal priest and bestselling author who writes about faith and spiritual practice. She talks about why darkness matters and how craving only light gives half a life. She describes moving to the country to learn the moon, sitting in a cave to find unexpected comfort, practicing courage daily, and witnessing illness and loss with presence.

Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative and author of *Just Mercy*, passionately discusses his lifelong commitment to justice and human rights. He shares how his early experiences with death row shaped his calling and the importance of being a 'stonecatcher'—a metaphor for absorbing condemnation to foster dialogue. They explore forgiveness towards the undeserving, the systemic inequalities in the justice system, and the power of truth-telling for healing. Stevenson’s hopeful perspective inspires resilience in the fight against racial injustice.