The secrecy around recent ‘alternative Anglican ordinations’ in London raises serious issues about the culture of the conservative evangelical constituency in the Church of England.

Professor Andrew Atherstone, a member of the General Synod and author of a biography of the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mullally, has reported on these alternative ordinations.

On the Law and Religion UK website, Atherstone describes how the battle in the C of E between progressive and conservative Anglicans is the context for these ordinations.

He says ‘the latest strategic move’ by the progressives is the Private Member’s Motion of Professor Helen King to be debated at the General Synod in July. This aims to get the Synod to ‘affirm that there are no fundamental objections to being in a committed, faithful, intimate same-sex relationship, and that such a relationship can be entirely compatible with Christian discipleship’.

At the same time, he says, the conservatives continue to move ‘their strategy forward and to stretch the ecclesial boundaries’.

He writes: ‘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…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…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.’

Atherstone critiques the secrecy around the ordinations of these deacons, six of whom were recommended for ordination by the Alternative Selection Panel run by the Anglican conservative evangelical network, ReNew, which mirrors the C of E’s national selection process.

He writes: ‘Every ordination should be proclaimed from the rooftops and widely celebrated. This is a fundamental principle. Ordination is a public event, marking entrance into a public ministry. Candidates must therefore be open to scrutiny by the wider church and their ordinations should not be confidential. There might be rare exceptions to this rule, in nations under oppressive anti-Christian regimes where new clergy risk their lives, but this hardly applies in England.

‘However, for the second year running, the REACH ordinations were not widely advertised. There have been no press releases after the event, by REACH or by the Church of England congregations who have received the new deacons, and their identities are deliberately withheld from the public for fear of social media recriminations or episcopal sanctions. Indeed, if it was not for the Law & Religion UK reports, the very existence of these ordinations would be unknown to the wider church.’

Unfortunately, secrecy has become part of the culture of English conservative evangelicalism. The C of E’s Makin Review in 2024 into the John Smyth abuse scandal exposed the cover-up perpetrated by leading conservative evangelical clergy such as David Fletcher and his younger brother Jonathan who was recently found by a jury to have indecently assaulted a man over 25 years.

David Fletcher, who died in 2022, ran the Iwerne evangelical camps for pupils from the elite English fee-paying boarding schools where Smyth groomed many of his victims in the 1970s and early 1980s. In 2025 Channel 4 News exposed David Fletcher as an abuser of women and girls.

The Makin Review describes how in 1989 Christopher Davies, then a young volunteer leader on the Iwerne camps who had learned of Smyth’s abuse, went to see Jonathan Fletcher to raise his concerns. The Review says Fletcher told Davies that he was not among those who had the “need to know” about the savage beatings Smyth committed against boys and young men.

The Bishop of Ebbsfleet, Rob Munro, is the official ‘flying’ bishop for the conservative evangelical constituency in the C of E with delegated oversight for around 150 parishes in England. He was not involved in these ordinations, but his predecessor, Rod Thomas, the retired Bishop of Maidstone, was involved in selecting the candidates as chairman of the ReNew selection panel.

According to Atherstone’s report, Bishop Thomas  addressed the congregation before the East London Tabernacle service. He explained that the alternative ordination pathway became necessary in December 2023 when the House of Bishops commended the Prayers of Love of Faith for same-sex couples now being used in existing C of E services.

The secrecy around the alternative ordinations surely raises this question for Anglican conservative evangelicals: how can they move on from the recent scandals unless they intentionally clean up the toxic culture shaped by the Fletchers and so contend more effectively for biblical truth?

Julian Mann, a former Church of England vicar, is an evangelical journalist based in Lancashire, UK.