With 'friends' like this, who needs other faiths?

I got this email recently. Interestingly it was picked up as spam (rightly) -but as it's not everyday I get faith-based spam, I thought I'd look it over. I wonder whether someone has a list of CofE related contacts especially for this kind of thing?

I was just taken by the tone of it: it is so unwinsome and so unloving. It does not commend itself even at the simple level of creating rapport with the reader. It couldn't possibly persuade or create an opening to try to win hearts or minds. It merely 'shouts' frustration and rage. Question; would I really want to to join a set up who are so enraged and whose writing seems so distant from Christ's spirit?

On another point: it accuses the CofE of "preaching a different gospel". This is clearly untrue: since when has a moral issue been gospel? To suggest that it is, seems more like salvation by works -and that really is a different gospel in Paul's terms.

Next question: how often do we come over like this?

To Representatives and
Believers
                                               of the Church of England

                           God’s anathema upon the Church of England

General Synod of Your Church resolved that “homosexual orientation in itself is no bar to a faithful Christian life or to full participation in
lay and ordained ministry in the Church”.

You have rejected God’s laws and the authority of God the Creator and Supreme Lawgiver. You no longer call evil evil, a sin a sin, an
abomination an abomination. You exchanged the truth for a lie and turned the Church of God into a synagogue of Satan (Rev 2:9).

The fruit of perversion is no blessing but a curse and self-destruction.
The apostatical Church of England has ceased to be a blessing for the
nation and brings down a curse upon it as well as upon all Europe.

The Byzantine Catholic Patriarchate, by authority of the apostolic and
prophetic office before God and before the Mystical Body of Christ, which
is the true Church of Christ, hereby declares before all Christians of the world (Mt 18:18): The anti-Church of England is no longer the Church of Christ but spiritual Babylon and the harlot of antichrist (Rev 17:1-6). We hereby call upon every member of this Church to be converted, to repent and to go out from that spiritual Babylon (Isa 52:11). The spirit of antichrist cast the Spirit of God out of this Church. All who want to be saved must separate from this anti-Church because it leads the deceived souls to eternal damnation in hell. This anti-Church has become a synagogue of Satan (see Rev 3:9; Rev 2:20-24) and preaches a different gospel. “Even if an angel from heaven should preach any other gospel to you, let him be accursed.” (Gal 1:8-9) By reason of apostasy from the Gospel of God, God has cast this curse upon the anti-Church of England.

On behalf of the Byzantine Catholic Patriarchate

                                              + Elijah
                                              Patriarch

                  + Methodius OSBMr               + Timothy OSBMr
                                     Secretaries of the BCP

                                                    Lvov (Ukraine), 12
July 2011

Copies to:
- Queen Elizabeth II and Government of Great Britain
- Presidents of EU member states and MEPs
- All Churches of Great Britain and Christian Churches of the world
- Mass media of Great Britain and the EU