The ABBA Tradition is the spiritual and mystical tradition that lies deep within and behind western religions and modern cultures. It is the worldview that is the source, substance, and infrastructure of Judaism and Christianity. It is the one great tradition behind the Hebrew and Greek languages, the Old and New Testaments, ancient religions, and modern science. Whether you call it Kabbalah, the Four World Tradition or something else, it transcends the separation between the historic faiths and, more importantly, teaches a way of reconciliation and reunion. This book helps Christians discover the profound Jewish tradition that Jesus of Nazareth lived and taught, and also highlights one of the greatest Jews of all time: Joshua be Miriam of Nazareth, who first brought the Gentile nations to the holy one of Israel. Heal the wounds that separate us one from another, Jew from Christian, brother from sister – and discover the interrelated worlds of physicality, psychality, spirituality, and divinity with the wisdom in this book.

This Festschrift celebrates the joyful heart and retirement from thirty-five years of university teaching of Bishop Kallistos Ware, a person who has found his monastic "desert" among the "dreaming spires" of academia, and his "cell" in the lecture room. The Festschrift contains articles by renowned academics, which are based on historical, theological, and spiritual themes.

Recent years have seen increasing numbers of Protestant and Catholic Christians converting to Eastern Orthodox Christianity. In this book D. Oliver Herbel examines Christian converts to Orthodoxy who served as exemplars and leaders for convert movements in America during the twentieth century. These convert groups include Carpatho Rusyns, African Americans, and Evangelicals. Religious mavericks have a long history in America--a tradition of being anti-tradition. Converts to orthodoxy reject such individualism by embracing an ancient form of Christianity even as they exemplify it by choosing their own religious paths. Drawing on archival resources including Rusyn and Russian newspapers, unpublished internal church documents, personal archives, and personal interviews, Herbel presents a close examination of the theological reasons for the exemplary converts' own conversions as well as the reasons they offered to persuade those who followed them. He considers the conversions within the context of the American anti-tradition, and of racial and ethnic tensions in America. This book offers the first serious investigation of this important trend in American religion and the first in-depth investigation of any kind of African-American Orthodoxy.

Hannah and Abba—Hebrew for "Dad"—are spending time together in nature on Tu B'Shevat, the Jewish Arbor Day. As Abba rests under a carob tree, Hannah declares that she wants to climb a tree. The carob tree's trunk is too skinny, but can she climb a eucalyptus tree or a pine tree or an olive tree? When each poses a challenge—for being too scratchy, for not having footholds—Abba offers new inspiration for climbing and insight into what Hannah and the carob tree share in common.

Time and space can take on a sacred nature in both Judaism and Christianity accompanied by a permanent critical attitude towards the sacred. Conceptions of sacredness imply a conception of community and of society at large. This study investigates the different attitudes toward sacred time and space from an interdisciplinary perspective, ranging from the Biblical period through Qumran, Patristics, Rabbinics, archaeology and theology to modern and even to post-modern rituals. This approach offers a fascinating insight into both the common heritage of Judaism and Christianity and their mutual differences.

First full-length history of the Oromo 1300-1700; explains their key part in the medieval Christian kingdom and demonstrates their importance in shaping Ethiopian history.

The church has emphasized ideas about God that have marginalized Jesus’ understanding of his spiritual Father, his Abba. We commonly think of God as a demanding lawgiver and judge, an omnipotent ruler, or an ultimate philosophical principle. None of these works well today. In contrast, Jesus’ view of God as spiritual Abba still truly works when it is given a chance. Christians should be open to accepting the ideas of the one they call Lord and Savior. In Jesus’ Abba, one of the greatest theologians of this generation boldly argues for a new view of God, through the eyes of Jesus. John B. Cobb Jr. interprets the whole of Jesus’ life and ministry, and death and resurrection, in light of Jesus’ understanding of God. He also shows that Paul shared this understanding and that it played a central role in Paul’s churches. Ultimately, Cobb argues that Jesus’ view of God fits our actual experience today, that it is supported by the evidence of the sciences, and that it encourages appreciative learning from other wisdom traditions and cooperation with them in redeeming the world. With this book, John B. Cobb Jr. makes his ultimate and most impassioned plea for us to rediscover God through Jesus.

The Lord’s Prayer unites Christians of all traditions. It is the first and perhaps only prayer that people learn by heart. However, its patriarchal and kingdom imagery do not resonate universally today. How do we pray the prayer Jesus taught us in ways which are authentic and life-giving? This volume, emerging from years of praying the Lord’s Prayer, offers a series of prayers and poems written in response to it. They wrestle with its central images and bring our own stories and relationships into dialogue with it. Each prayer uses the address Abba or Amma: Aramaic terms of intimate address to God as father or mother which reflect Jesus’ usage, drawing on the abbas and ammas of the Desert Tradition as well as our own parental relationships. It aims to integrate our whole human journey into the vocation of being a follower of Jesus. An extended introduction explores why praying the Lord’s Prayer is significant, how it is problematic, and how contemporary theological reinterpretations offer fresh perspective on it.

Fr. Deiss helps readers discover the environment of light--Joseph and Mary's tenderness--in which Jesus' humanity developed. This work reflects on the child Jesus, stressing the influence that Joseph and Mary had on Jesus' childhood at the human level--both intellectually and spiritually.