Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved

“The prosperity gospel is a theodicy, an explanation for the problem of evil. It is an answer to the question that takes our lives apart: Why do some people get healed and some people don’t? […] The prosperity gospel looks at the world as it is and promises a solution. It guarantees that faith will always make a way.”

A theodicy is “an attempt to justify or defend God in the face of evil.” (“Theodicy: A Brief Overview.” Dallas Baptist University.) Bowler was the first mainstream church historian to write a history of the prosperity gospel, and had wanted to believe in the tenets of its theology. Here she expresses the prosperity gospel’s theological premise: One can improve one’s life by enhancing one’s faith in the Christian God. Her examination of the accuracy of this belief is a main theme of the narrative.

“Fairness is one of the most compelling claims of the American dream, vision of success propelled by hard work, determination, and maybe the occasional pair of bootstraps. Wherever I have lived in North America, I’ve been sold a story about an unlimited horizon and the personal characteristics that are required to waltz toward it. It is the language of entitlement. It is the careful math of deserving, meted out as painstakingly as my sister and I used to inventory and trade our Halloween candy. In this world, I deserve what I get. I earn my keep and keep my share. In a world of fair, nothing clung to can ever slip away.”

Bowler describes the belief that, with honest hard work, one can achieve whatever one desires. She attributes this to North America without denoting whether she is referring to the US or to Canada as well. She suggests that the prosperity gospel is a natural offshoot of the long-held American belief that one can achieve one’s dreams through diligent, single-minded pursuit of one’s goals. Her critique of this belief can be gleaned through phrases like “sold a story.”

“‘I’m going to need for you to burn this,’ I say, finally, gesturing exasperatedly to my dress. ‘I can’t see it again. That life is over.’ I am oscillating between hysteria and an executioner’s humor. ‘I’m just the luckiest girl in the world,’ I say with mock enthusiasm... […]’

‘I just don’t,’ I keep saying, ‘I just don’t know what to do.’”

When the gastrointestinal symptoms she has suffered with for months reveal themselves to be Stage IV colon cancer, Bowler is stunned. Her response indicates that she was not prepared for this eventuality, and she struggles to make sense of what is happening.