the universalism of Christianity

The only two systems in which the mysteries and the philosophies come together are Hinduism and [Chris]tianity: there you get both Metaphysics and Cult (continuous with the primeval cults).  That is why my first step was to be sure that one or the other of these had the answer.  For the reality can't be one that appeals either only to savages or only to high brows.  Real things are like that (e.g. matter is the first more obvious thing you meet -- milk, chocolates, apples, and also the object of quantum physics).  . . .  But the weakness of Hinduism is that it doesn't really join the two strands.  Unredeemably savage religion goes on in the village: the Hermit philosophises in the forest: and neither really interferes with the other.  It is only [Chris]tianity wh[ich] compels a high brow like me to partake in a ritual blood feast, and also compels a central African convert to attempt an enlightened universal code of ethics.
 - C.S. Lewis 

and more divine humility

The same divine humility which decreed that God should become a baby at a peasant-woman’s breast, and later an arrested field-preacher in the hands of the Roman police, decreed also that He should be preached in a vulgar, prosaic and unliterary language. If you can stomach the one, you can stomach the other. The Incarnation is in that sense an irreverent doctrine: Christianity, in that sense, an incurably irreverent religion. When we expect that it should have come before the World in all the beauty that we now feel in the Authorised Version we are as wide of the mark as the Jews were in expecting that the Messiah would come as a great earthly King. The real sanctity, the real beauty and sublimity of the New Testament (as of Christ’s life) are of a different sort: miles deeper or further in.
  - C. S. Lewis

Divine humility

I call this Divine humility because it is a poor thing to strike our colours to God when the ship is going down under us; a poor thing to come to Him as a last resort, to offer up “our own” when it is no longer worth keeping.  If God were proud He would hardly have us on such terms: but He is not proud, He stoops to conquer, He will have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to Him, and come to Him because there is ‘nothing better’ now to be had.
 - C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

signs and wonders and uppity believers

It is worthy of special notice that our Lord had not said, in so many words, that He was the Son of God, on this occasion. But He had said what beyond doubt amounted to it—namely, that He gave His sheep eternal life, and none could pluck them out of His hand; that He had got them from His Father, in whose hands, though given to Him, they still remained, and out of whose hand none could pluck them; and that they were the indefeasible property of both, inasmuch as “He and His Father were one.” Our Lord considers all this as just saying of Himself, “I am the Son of God”—one nature with Him, yet mysteriously of Him.*http://www.angelfire.com/in/HisName/littlgods.html

When you become a born again Christian you grow to become more Christ-like, you DO NOT become like Christ or a Christ or anything Divine for that matter.  However in Charismatic churches you do; you become a little god - ‘Faith’ becomes an actual force that you wield at your command as you speak things into existence.  This is totally and utterly occult.  The New Age religion believes in something similar . . . http://www.discerningtheworld.com/2011/01/17/the-bible-says-i-said-you-are-gods-but-is-this-entirely-true/

If you or I had come to earth as the Messiah, we would probably have been moving about and taking every opportunity possible with people to verbally emphasize who we really were: Elohim. But Jesus didn't do that. He chose rather to imply His identity through the miracles, through the Parables, through His actions.  probe.org

Sense and Sensitivity in Passion Movies: Gospel and Race

Funny article linked from ChristianBookBarn.com discussing the not-so-ethnic Jesus's Hollywood has given us over the years and how they compare.  Even more interesting which depiction of Jesus and his disciples comes out as most ethnically sensitive ...

power of death

But were it not for that blood, were it not for the death of Christ, you can easily conceive what power the devil would have over us in the hour of death, because he would fling all our sins in our teeth just when we came to die. . . . We reply to the temptation to sin, ". . . But O fiend, let me tell thee my sins were numbered on the scape-goat's head of old. Go thou, O Satan, to Calvary's cross, and see my substitute bleeding there, Behold, my sins are not mine; they are laid on his eternal shoulders, and he has cast them from his own shoulders into the depths of the sea. Avaunt, hell-hound! Wouldst thou worry me? Go thou and satisfy thyself with a sight of that Man, who entered the gloomy dungeons of death, and slept awhile there, and then rent the bars away, and led captivity captive as a proof that he was justified of God the Father, and that I also am justified in him." Oh! yes, this is the way that Christ's death destroys the power of the devil.
~ Charles Spurgeon

greater works: part I

It's difficult to know where to start with criticisms of the "signs and wonders" movement as it is sometimes called.  I'm hoping to compare and contrast some criticisms from within and without the "charismatic movement" (as that has been called), along the way as I make some observations about the  

Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves. Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.

http://letusreason.org/Biblexp107.htm

You can do the greater work by learning the gospel and learning how to explain and stand down the arguments against it. The gospel message is the power of God to salvation which, Jesus taught as the most important (Rom. 1:16; 1 Cor. 1:18; 2 Tim.1:8; 1 Pt.1:5)- once it is understood by those hearing the message it becomes a motivation to exercise ones will to call upon the Lord to save them from their sin.