I think the challenge was put very nicely by the ’Sunday Times’ journalist Matthew Parris – a man, who by his own confession, is not a Christian. Parris wrote:
’The New Testament offers a picture of God, who does not sound at all vague. He has sent His Son to earth. He has distinct plans for each of us personally and can communicate directly with us.
We are capable of forming a direct
relationship, individually with Him, and are commanded to try.
We are told that this can be done only through his son.
And we are offered the prospect of eternal life – an afterlife in happy, blissful or glorious circumstances if we live this life in a certain manner.
Friends, if I believed that, or even a tenth of that, how could I care which version of the prayer book is used.
I would drop my job, sell my house, throw away all my possessions, leave my acquaintances and set out into the world burning with desire to know more and, when I had found more, to act upon it and tell others.
Far from being puzzled that the Mormons and Adventists should knock on the door, I am unable to understand how anyone who believed that (which) is written in the Bible could choose to spend their waking hours in any other endeavour.’ (Matthew Parris).