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real truth, real guilt, real history

Francis Schaeffer at heart was an evangelist.  Apologetics for him was not merely answering questions and objections, but addressing assumptions prior to asking for commitment to Christ.  Because most people view religious belief as a category of feeling, outside of any objective sense of truth or history, he said... 


"As we get ready to tell him God's answer to his need, we must make sure that he understands that we are talking to him about real truth, and not about something vaguely religious which seems to work psychologically.  We must make sure that he understands that we are talking about real guilt before God and that we are not offering him merely relief for his guilt feelings.  We must make sure that he understands that we are talking to him about history, and that the death of Jesus was not just an ideal or a symbol but a fact of space and time.  If we are talking to a man who would not understand the term 'space-time history' we can say to him, 'Do you believe that Jesus died in the sense that, if you had been there that day, you could have rubbed your finger on the cross and got a splinter in it?'  Until he understands the importance of these three things, he is not ready to become a Christian."    (--from The God Who Is There, pp 127-28)
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