by George Conger, Anglican Ink
The Alliance in the Church of England released a short promotional video on 14 September 2026, marking the opening of the General Synod election campaign with a deliberate bid to broaden its appeal beyond the orthodox networks that formed its original base — and to present itself to the wider Church not as a party of resistance but as a movement of gospel renewal.
The two-minute film, built around the “vine and branches” passage from St John’s Gospel — “apart from me you can do nothing” — frames the Alliance’s ambitions in studiedly irenic terms. Evangelism, mission, church revitalisation, and national renewal: the language could have come from any Decade of Evangelism document, any New Wine conference, or any HTB Leadership Summit of the past thirty years. That, of course, is precisely the point. With Synod elections approaching and the Living in Love and Faith process formally closed by the House of Bishops in January, the Alliance is pivoting from institutional confrontation to institutional capture — and this video is its opening move
A Network of Networks
The Alliance describes itself as “a network of networks within the Church of England committed to our Anglican heritage of faith, holding to the received teaching of the Church of England.” In practice it is a coalition of striking theological breadth and, to some observers, equally striking political convenience — spanning HTB and New Wine charismatics, CEEC and Church Society Reformed evangelicals, Forward in Faith Anglo-Catholics, ReNew, the Global Majority Fellowship on General Synod, and Living Out, the ministry affirming celibacy for same-sex-attracted Christians. Holding a charismatic renewal network, a Tridentine-adjacent catholic grouping, and a Calvinist confessional body in the same ecclesiastical tent is no small feat of ecumenical dexterity. Whether it constitutes a coherent theological movement or a tactical alliance of temporary convenience is, depending on one’s viewpoint, either its greatest strength or its most pressing question.
The coalition claims the support of more than 2,000 Church of England clergy, and has argued — not without challenge — that it represents approximately 42 per cent of the Church of England, a figure that critics at Via Media News and elsewhere have contested with some vigour.
The Moment That Made the Alliance