How Positivity Goes Toxic with Kate Bowler

Jen: Hey, you guys. Welcome to the show. Welcome to the For the Love podcast. I am here with my friend Amy. You are getting to know her. You’re going to get to know her even more. 

Jen: Hi. Welcome.

Jen: It’s a barrel of laughs over here all the time. I told Amy right when she walked in that I had just performed a wasp massacre. One foot outside this door there is a wasp’s nest that will not go away. 

Amy: She told me after I walked through the porch and into the door. 

Jen: Well that’s fair, I didn’t hear you. Now you know, on your way out to pay attention for any leftover furious wasps. 

Amy: Yeah. 

Jen: So, you guys, this is a good episode. We are re-airing one of our favorites for you today. I had truly the one and only. There is no one like her. There is only one Kate Bowler. I love her. If you heard this before. This originally aired on the show on our premium channel last February which means this didn’t make it out to the wider audience and we thought it should. This is too good to keep behind the firewall. Kate is one of our favorite people, not just on this pod, but in our whole community. In this particular episode, she and I spoke a lot about her first book, which was called Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel, like #blessed, and yes, there is sarcasm built into that. I want to talk to you about that book in a second. We also spoke about her latest book at the time, last February, which was The Lives We Actually Have: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days. If you don’t know Kate and you don’t know her story or her messaging, you might be like, “This feels kind of cringey, #blessed content.” It is the opposite of that. Have you read any of her books, Amy? 

Amy: I have. 

Jen: What have you read? 

Amy: Most of them and I follow her on Instagram. I screenshot her posts like an old lady. 

Jen: Yeah. 

Amy: She has a mural, I think it’s in Raleigh. 

Jen: Yes, and I have a screenshot of it also. What else are we supposed to do? 

Amy: I don’t know. 

Jen: I mean, we’re not IT specialists. 

Amy: So I go back and look at that regularly. 

Jen: I know. She’s one of those people that I think about as being so unique in this world. I don’t know if that’s the right word I’m going for, but there isn’t anybody like Kate. She has suffered. You’re going to hear this. Her comeuppance came through a terminal cancer diagnosis and I won’t pull a lot from the interview, but just know, she’s not just skating through life like a Pollyanna, but then she’s just so quirky. She’s so funny. I should have brought it out. Amy, I don’t know if you ever saw this, but in her last book, which is titled Have a Beautiful, Terrible Day. Sometimes authors will send other authors a little advance copy of their book so we can see it and Kate and I are friends. So I get her little book package and it’s the book and sometimes we get cutesy and send a little gift or some such. The gift that she sent to each of her friends was a prayer candle. Do you know what I’m saying? Like the tall ones that have the image on them? Well on this candle, the image was me. She pulled my face from some picture on the internet and I’m in prayer hands and it says Saint Jen Hatmaker and it’s absurd. It’s on my desk. 

Amy: Have you burned it? 

Jen: No, I want it to be buried with it. I don’t want to ruin it or waste it. It’s the funniest thing I have ever seen. I want to talk to you for one minute before we start this conversation with Kate about this whole idea of  blessings. Kate says this is the episode, “There is, frankly, almost no relationship between people’s lives working out and whether they are fundamentally good and lovable by God among other people, period.” This conflation of, “Do these things get this life?” I grew up in some of that. Did you? Well, you grew up Methodist, right? 

Amy: It wasn’t overt but what I was reminded of in this episode is it’s the water we’re in. It’s not just the Christian water. It’s the American water. 

Jen: That is absolutely true. 

Amy: This episode gave me a little more understanding and a little less judgment. It’s still absolutely toxic, but I can understand how if you don’t realize it’s what you’re swimming in, it permeates your entire worldview.

Jen: You’re right that there is a very specific brand of this inside a religious context that’s very God-centered. Do these things and God will give you a happy life. Then you get these guaranteed outcomes. Reversing it, assigning prosperity or affluence or success must be because that person was uniquely faithful. You’re right because outside of a religious context, I think about politically and culturally still, there is this fake idea out there that opportunity is simply a function of how hard you’re willing to try. 

Amy: It turns out that’s garbage. 

Jen: No consideration of complicated intersections, of racial layers, of gendered labels, of geographical layers. So you’re right. This is kind of in the air. This is baked into the sauce. You get what you deserve, you get what you work for and those are sort of guaranteed. First of all, she’s got a doctorate. So this funny person who sends me prayer candles with my face on it is actually a very serious person. She works at Duke University as a professor. So this is actually a researcher. This isn’t just her feelings, although that matters. This is heavily researched and it’s fascinating to hear her talk about its roots because it actually precedes even where I’ve thought this came from. These are old ideas and we disabuse the notion of toxic positivity. Have you ever been hit with that? 

Amy: Yeah. Again, it’s the water we live in. I think the worst version of it, is when a tragedy does befall you or your family, the things people say are so awfully hurtful and ridiculous and make you feel worse in the moment. I love her ability to cut through all of that. In fact, before I watched this episode, I actually sent a quote of hers to a friend last week who lost her mom because no one puts it into words better than she does and the last thing you want to say is, “Well, they’re not suffering anymore.” 

Jen: That’s right. Frankly, if your first comment to somebody hurting is “Well..” That’s probably an indicator that whatever you’re about to say isn’t great. 

Jen: “Well at least you still have your other parent, right?” The notion of bright, citing pain, particularly for somebody who’s in it at the moment. If I could go back and listen to some of the things I probably said early on to people in pain where I was uncomfortable with discomfort, I would probably want to dig a hole in the ground. So we’re going to talk about all of that. Kate is very candid about her own story. This is a person acquainted with suffering, pain, and mortality. So she’s not just smart, she’s trustworthy, and she’s good. Oh, and she’s funny. Oh, my gosh, she’s so funny. 

Amy: I knew she was funny. I knew she was smart, kind, and brilliant in her genre. What I did not know was how big of a weirdo she was. 

Jen: Absolute weirdo. She would say that if she was sitting in this room with us. 

Amy: I felt she was a kindred spirit. 

Jen: Her affection for the bizarre and the quirky is one of my favorite things about her among many other things. Anyway, you’re going to love this episode. I’m so glad you’re here. If you are hurting in any way. If you have been through suffering. If you are in it now. If some of your people are not responding to you in a way that is nurturing or nourishing or comforting, or on the flip side if somebody that you love right now is hurting and you’re going, “What can I do? What should I say? What should I not say? What are the best practices for suffering gently and compassionately alongside somebody? This is your episode and Kate, your girl. So without any further ado enjoy this incredible conversation with the incomparable Kate Bowler.