Book review | Rhythms of Faith
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Rhythms of Faith: A devotional pilgrimage through the Church Year (Penguin Books (Rider), 2025)
by Claude Atcho
Reviewer: Alan Rashleigh
Claude Atcho is a North American Anglican priest, and serves as a pastor of the Church of the Resurrection in Virginia.
This is a book which is refreshingly adaptable in its approach to guiding the reader to understand their pilgrimage through the Christian year. It uses the lectionary to provide Bible readings (and texts). It can easily be used in any one of three different ways:
Daily devotional approach.
Weekly approach, whether for Sunday services or for preachers to prepare for worship.
A continuous programme of study, for example in Bible study groups.
There are 55 chapters to include Holy Week and other special festivals, such as Ash Wednesday and All Saints Day. Each chapter includes a commentary of the readings and texts, and at the end, a number of questions are posed for reflection of discussion.
The language used enables everyone to relate to the arguments the author espouses, being easily readable. For the readers in the UK, there is a word of caution, the book is written for the American readers, therefore the UK readers may wish to substitute examples which may more readily known. An interesting example, is in the first session (Advent 1), which makes the perfectly valid point that we prefer to tell about ourselves or relate to celebrities in the society we most revere. As this review is being written there have been several TV programmes about Bob Geldorf and the Live Aid/ Band Aid concerts 40 years ago. The book concentrates only of the concert in Philedelphia and the USA for African poverty as if the idea originated in the USA!
The book does contain many other valid illustrations and personal recollections, which vividly highlight the points being made. One particular apposite story is of a family wedding attended by his family in Switzerland, they communicated with each other in the language of their childhood - and obscure tribal dialect for the Cote d’Ivoire. It was what they had in common.
It is a scholarly and informative book which will appeal to a wide range of experiences and understanding of the Christian faith without being patronising or condescending. Worth keeping!
Reviewer:
Alan Rashleigh has been a Methodist local preacher for 48 years and is a retired ATC chaplain; he is also a VAT consultant specialising in charities and a former Finance Director of LWPT and LWPHomes.