In this era of American megaministries, churches have become vast businesses that rise and fall on the reputation of the pastor and, increasingly, his wife. The pastor’s wife has become a bonafide celebrity who shares the ministry, the spotlight and the earnings of her leading man. This talk explores the rise of the market for the pastor’s wife since the 1970s and her transformation into a branded icon of Christian womanhood.

This event is part of the Religion and Politics in American Public Lifelecture series.  Now in its third year, the series is co-coordinated by Professors Courtney Bender, Jean Cohen, and Josef Sorett.  It is jointly sponsored by the Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life; the Department of Political Science at Columbia University; and the Department of Religion at Columbia University.  For more information on the series, including future speakers, go to ircpl.org/americanpubliclife.

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Kate Bowler is assistant professor of the history of Christianity in North America at Duke Divinity. She teaches courses in American Christianity and world Christianity with an emphasis on historical and ethnographic methods. Her research interests include contemporary evangelicalism, pentecostalism, megachurches, and religion and ethnicity.  Her first book, Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel (Oxford, 2013), traces the rise of Christian belief in divine promises of health, wealth, and happiness. Other works on the prosperity gospel include "Blessed Bodies: Healing within the African-American Faith Movement," in Global Pentecostal and Charismatic Healing (Oxford University Press, 2011) and “From Far and Wide: The Canadian Faith Movement,” Church & Faith Trends, February 2010.  She has received a 2015 sabbatical grant for researchers from The Louisville Institute to write a book on the cultural history of the wife “co-pastor” as a modern American icon.