McLaren's Seven Abrahamic Practices

Just when I start thinking that Finding Our Way Again is too simplistic and introductory for my taste, Brian McLaren comes up with another fresh insight.  Maybe starting from the assumption that the reader knows very little about the history of religion is a good thing, because it takes the reader back to re-evaluate old, easy assumptions.

McLaren uses Abraham, patriarch of the three faiths of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, as a starting point to identify basic categories of spiritual practices:

1. Pilgrimage
2. Fasting
3. The holy meal
4. Formal, fixed-hour prayer
5. Giving / tithing
6. Sabbath
7. Liturgical year

Although McLaren is stretching in some respects, this is a good concept: tracing back the patterns that the Abrahamic faiths have in common, and finding sources for them in shared story.