A Review

Author : Asper Ter Kuile

Published: June 23, 2020 · HarperCollins Publisher

A book for those still grateful for their tradition, but longing for a deeper, freer spiritual life

This is not one of those self-help, feel-good, New Age books that turns spirituality into scented candles and mantras about “being your best self.” Nor is it a nostalgic plea to bring people back to church pews or parish rosters.

Casper ter Kuile’s The Power of Ritual is something else entirely: a serious, searching, and quietly joyful reflection on how meaning, connection, and spiritual depth are still possible—even for those who no longer find a home in traditional religion.

Ter Kuile is a theologian trained at Harvard. He’s also openly gay, culturally Jewish, and self-described as atheist. And yet few books in recent years speak so reverently of the sacred, so practically of ritual, and so hopefully of community. There’s no glib optimism here—just an honest listening to what aches in many of us, and a gentle offering of practices that might help us live more deeply and humanely.

He suggests that spirituality, as Henri Nouwen once put it, begins with the conviction that “there is more to life than meets the eye.” That “more,” for Ter Kuile, is not a doctrine to believe in but a mystery to lean toward—through rituals that open us to grace, belonging, and love.

Each chapter explores small but meaningful acts of connection:

– A Sunday morning run with friends becomes a kind of church.

– Reading aloud each night becomes a form of prayer.

– Lighting a candle at dawn becomes an inner Sabbath

-        Fasting  by having a a day free of mobile, an social devices

-        Sacred reading, Take a passage fro, Harry Poeter, that touches something yo and just chew over it

These aren’t quirky life-hacks. They’re ways of reclaiming sacredness in ordinary time.

He reframes rituals as relationships: with self, with others, with the natural world, and with what he calls “the more”—what many of us would call God. He doesn’t dismiss religious tradition, but he does reimagine it. A digital Sabbath. A mindful fast from social media. A daily walk that becomes a kind of pilgrimage. A book club that turns into a circle of care.

And crucially, he flips the old religious formula:

Not believe → behave → belong,

but belong → practise → believe.

In a time of cultural change, institutional fatigue, and quiet deconstruction, The Power of Ritual offers no false hope or grand schemes. What it offers is companionship. Honesty. And a deep sense that the yearning for connection and meaning is still holy ground.

For those of us who can’t go back—but still long to go deeper—this book is a guide, a balm, and a quiet revolution.

It reminds us that faith is not only about what we believe, but about how we live, love, and ritualise the ordinary.

It’s a call to travel light, build new altars, and trust that the sacred hasn’t gone anywhere.

We just need new ways to meet it.

Reviewed by Fr. Tom McDonough, C.P.