• 32 minutes 3 seconds
    Listen Again: Everyone’s From Somewhere with Erin & Ben Napier

    Erin and Ben Napier didn’t plan on becoming household names. They were just trying to build a beautiful life in their beloved hometown of Laurel, Mississippi, one house, one neighbor, one Main Street at a time. In this heartwarming conversation, Kate talks to the stars of HGTV’s Home Town about what happens when our plans fall apart and something even better takes root. 

    They reflect on the surprising twists that led from political aspirations and magazine dreams to woodworking, parenting, and a television show that celebrates belonging. Along the way, they explore how creativity is born out of necessity, making a home, building a community, and loving the place where you are. 

    In this episode, they discuss:

    • The ache and joy of making a home in the place that raised you
    • How small acts of community build a life
    • The beauty of third places and why talking to strangers still matters

    If you liked this episode, you may also like: 

    This episode originally aired June 2025.

    12 May 2026, 7:30 am
  • 42 minutes 45 seconds
    Doubt, Depth, and the Future of Belief with Tomáš Halík

    What happens to faith when certainty collapses? Kate Bowler sits down with theologian and former underground priest Tomáš Halík to explore belief forged under surveillance, the spiritual value of doubt, and why going deeper—not louder—might be the only faithful response to a fractured world. Together, they consider silence, suffering, and what it means to remain open to God when clarity is nowhere to be found.

    SHOW NOTES

    28 April 2026, 7:30 am
  • 51 minutes 16 seconds
    How to Love the World Anyway with Nadia Bolz-Weber and Sarah Bessey

    Kate Bowler is joined by Nadia Bolz-Weber and Sarah Bessey for an honest, funny, and deeply tender conversation about what it means to be people of faith right now. When the world feels overwhelming—personally and globally—they explore small acts of love, embodied community, and “cozy faith” as resistance to despair. From knitting circles and prayer shawls to church, doubt, and the stubborn choice to keep loving the world, this episode is about finding hope in ordinary, human ways.

    SHOW NOTES

    21 April 2026, 7:30 am
  • 56 minutes 38 seconds
    Joy, Absurdity, and the Weird Ways We Survive with Rhett McLaughlin and Jenny Lawson

    What if humor isn’t just a personality trait—but a survival strategy?

    Kate Bowler sits down with writer Jenny Lawson and entertaining YouTuber Rhett McLaughlin to talk about the strange, often dark roots of comedy. From childhood anxiety and taxidermy-filled homes to lifelong creative friendships and faith that evolves, they explore how silliness, honesty, and absurdity help us live with what hurts. This is a conversation about being “too much,” laughing at what’s not funny, and finding connection in the weirdest parts of being human.

    SHOW NOTES

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    14 April 2026, 7:30 am
  • 10 minutes 22 seconds
    Joyful Anyway (Yes, Even Now)

    On the day her new book Joyful Anyway releases, Kate pauses before the interviews and travel to reflect on a harder question: what does it mean to talk about joy in a world that feels fractured, exhausting, and uncertain? In this short, personal episode, she pushes back on the pressure to optimize our way into happiness and instead explores a stranger, sturdier kind of joy—one that shows up alongside grief, ordinary stress, and lives that don’t quite match the ones we imagined. With a reading from the book and a few honest reflections, this is an invitation to consider what might be better than happiness—and how joy might still find us anyway.

    SHOW NOTES

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    7 April 2026, 7:30 am
  • 50 minutes 30 seconds
    The Strange Gift of Joy with Rowan Williams

    As Holy Week arrives, Kate talks with theologian, poet, and former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams about joy that doesn’t erase sorrow. Together they explore longing, grief, music, gratitude, hope, and the strange, defiant way joy can sit right beside pain without denying what’s true.

    SHOW NOTES

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    31 March 2026, 7:30 am
  • 38 minutes 5 seconds
    Living the Questions (Without Fixing Yourself) with Suleika Jaouad

    There’s a particular kind of pressure that creeps in when we start measuring our lives—where we thought we’d be by now, who we imagined we’d become, how things were supposed to feel. The instinct is to fix it. Optimize it. Get moving.

    But what if the invitation is something else?

    Kate Bowler sits down with writer and speaker Suleika Jaouad (Between Two Kingdoms, The Book of Alchemy) for a conversation about living inside unresolved questions—especially the ones that ache. Together, they talk about ambition and exhaustion, chronic illness and uncertainty, and the quiet shifts that happen when nothing seems to change.

    They explore the tension between momentum and meaning, the limits of self-improvement, and what it looks like to keep going without pretending everything is fixable.

    SHOW NOTES

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    24 March 2026, 7:30 am
  • 36 minutes 50 seconds
    What If Prayer Isn’t What You Think It Is? with Malcolm Guite

    What if Lent isn’t about giving something up, but about learning how to sit with what’s already gone? In this episode, Kate talks with poet, priest, and theologian Malcolm Guite about the kind of faith that can hold contradiction—the yes and the no, belief and doubt, beauty and sorrow. Malcolm, a Life Fellow at Girton College, Cambridge and author of Sounding the Seasons and Lifting the Veil, reflects on prayer as attention, poetry as a language spacious enough for ambivalence, and why faith might need less forced resolution and more honesty.

    SHOW NOTES

    • Sounding the Seasons by Malcolm Guite

    • Lifting the Veil by Malcolm Guite

    • Seamus Heaney, Station Island

    • George Herbert, “Prayer”

    • Gerard Manley Hopkins, the “terrible sonnets” (including “No worst, there is none”) and The Wreck of the Deutschland

    • T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

    • C.S. Lewis, “Blue Spells and Flowered Spheres”

    • 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.

    17 March 2026, 7:30 am
  • 48 minutes 54 seconds
    The Randomness of Everything with Mark Rank

    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:

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    10 March 2026, 7:30 am
  • 50 minutes 25 seconds
    The New Shape of American Religion with Ross Douthat and Molly Worthen

    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

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    3 March 2026, 8:30 am
  • 49 minutes 45 seconds
    What If Happiness Isn’t What You Think It Is? with Patrik Hagman

    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

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

    24 February 2026, 8:30 am
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