Why does Kate Bowler say 'everything happens for a reason' hurts people who are suffering?

Kate Bowler told Shankar Vedantam that it is painful to be dying in a culture where everyone has a reason. Explanations, she argues, pour certainty over pain and quietly suggest the sufferer is to blame. When a neighbor told her husband that everything happens for a reason, he replied that he would love to hear the reason his wife was dying. Bowler calls the American habit of turning every setback into a lesson a deeply national impulse.

• After her New York Times essay, Bowler received thousands of letters, many offering spiritual explanations.
• One writer listed, on the back of a church bulletin, the reasons he thought she deserved to die.

Source: our own transcription of the episode. The full conversation is on Hidden Brain (2026-10-05). Read the whole episode summary →

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