Ahead of Archbishop Sarah Mullally’s first General Synod as president, in February 2026, the House of Bishops announced its intention to draw a line under the Living in Love and Faith project which had generated seven years of intense Anglican angst, heated debates, and fractured relationships. But the ecclesial shocks to the Church of England continue to reverberate and the fault lines still grow deeper. Anglican strategists, across the theological spectrum, continue to put new ‘facts on the ground’ in their efforts to change the church.
The latest strategic move by progressive Anglicans, who hope to reform the Church of England’s doctrine and liturgical practice, is the Private Member’s Motion of Professor Helen King (vice-chair of Together for the Church of England) due to be considered by General Synod in July 2026. At the same time, conservative Anglicans who hope to reform the Church of England’s institutional structures have not been idle. They also continue to move their strategy forward and to stretch the ecclesial boundaries.
For example, the Church of England Evangelical Council has now commissioned 40 senior incumbents and retired bishops as Alternative Spiritual Overseers (ASOs) to provide oversight for about 250 clergy and 50 Parochial Church Councils who are in impaired relationships with their bishops. The title ‘overseer’ is synonymous with ‘bishop’, though the ASOs are careful to emphasise their ‘spiritual’ rather than ‘jurisdictional’ responsibilities. Alternative structures are steadily being built within the Church of England.
Alternative ordinations are a significant plank in these new structures. In June 2025, I reported on the ordination of seven deacons by Bishop Martin Morrison of the Reformed Evangelical Anglican Church of South Africa (REACH SA), for service as ‘missionary clergy’ in Church of England parishes. In a letter to Sarah Mullally and Stephen Cottrell, Morrison explained that he agreed to conduct the ordinations, at the request of English clergy, ‘with the aim of sustaining and advancing faithful Anglican evangelical witness and to ensure we do not lose a generation of gifted gospel workers to ordained ministry.’ Mullally and Cottrell rebuked this South African intervention as ‘ecumenically discourteous’, unnecessary, and ‘inflammatory.’
Nevertheless, the momentum continues. On Thursday 11 June 2026, Morrison returned to the East London Tabernacle, a Baptist chapel in Mile End, for a second round of ordinations of the next seven deacons. This time, there was no epistolary exchange with the Archbishops. It was an understated affair, almost ‘business as usual’. The significance of these ordinations is no longer their novelty but their normalcy. A pattern has been established and is growing more deeply embedded. This report offers a brief eyewitness account of the ordination service, with a critique.
The 2026 Ordination cohort
The alternative ordination pathway aims to replicate all three parts of the normal Church of England pathway – selection, training, and ordination – except that the training is self-financed without access to Church of England grants. In the 2026 cohort, five of the seven deacons are graduates of the Proclamation Trust’s Leaders’ Training Course (LTC), formerly known as ‘Cornhill Plus’, which markets itself as ‘seminary level vocational training’. It offers an evangelical alternative to the Church of England’s theological colleges and courses. A typical training pathway encompasses the ‘pre-seminary’ Cornhill Training Course for two days a week over two years, followed by LTC for one day a week over four years (plus three residential study weeks each year). Its primary focus is upon biblical study and preaching, with no exams and no university validation, while students spend most of the week employed by a local church. Graduates of LTC are encouraged to pursue a Master’s degree in theology via an established university, such as the ‘Common Awards’ MA in Theology, Ministry and Mission at Durham. Currently, there are 38 leaders-in-training enrolled in LTC (across all four years), two-thirds of whom are Anglicans heading towards REACH ordinations. In normal circumstances, these candidates would have been through the standard Church of England route of selection panel, theological college or course, and ordination to a curacy. But now they refuse to do so and, as a result, the Church of England is haemorrhaging evangelical ordinands every year.
Six of the seven REACH deacons in 2026 were recommended for ordination by the ReNew network’s Alternative Selection Panel (ASP), which mirrors the Church of England’s national selection process. It includes three one-hour interviews examining the candidate’s theology, pastoral gifts, and personal character, plus references, safeguarding checks, and a pastoral exercise. Before the East London Tabernacle service, the congregation was addressed by Rod Thomas (former Bishop of Maidstone), who chairs the ASP. He explained that this alternative pathway became necessary in December 2023 when the House of Bishops commended the Prayers of Love of Faith. Until that commendation is withdrawn, or alternative provision is agreed, Thomas declared, ‘we cannot pretend we’re walking together’. ….
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Professor Andrew Atherstone is a member of the Church of England’s General Synod. His latest book is Archbishop Sarah Mullally (Hodder & Stoughton, 2026).