With the leadership of the Church of England now seemingly unwilling to defend biblical teaching on marriage and human sexuality, and the tacit or even official authorisation of services of same-sex blessing looking likely, are English confessing Anglicans capable of doing an ACNA?

Some may be but the large suburban conservative evangelical churches are surely unlikely to be in the vanguard. The reason for this is perhaps difficult for American readers to understand. But it is to do with the institutional proclivities of the suburban English middle classes fuelled by private education and the Oxbridge ethos of the established professions. The Bishop, when push comes to shove, is after all the head man or woman.

This status-quo-inclined institutionalism is why the sincerely Christian, courageous ministers currently leading these large churches would find it difficult to take their congregations with them out of the Church of England. Many of these churches have invested heavily in their buildings. They have large staff teams. The cost of leaving would be perceived as too high by the pillars of many of these large commuter churches.

So, such churches would likely remain in the institutional Church of England continuing publicly to hold to conservative Christianity with the collusion of the liberal diocesan authorities. But this collusion itself carries a price tag. That is because the longer these churches stay in a corrupted denomination, the more susceptible they are to becoming like the institutional Church of England is now - officially holding to biblical teaching but abandoning it in practice.

Under this scenario, the established churches more likely to form a new orthodox Anglican Province in England would surely be the smaller, less affluent, less middle class congregations. They are less hampered by culturally stifling English institutionalism.

Because such churches are small and not wealthy, many of their ministers would have to go self-supporting, probably in low-paid work and would have to rent cheap living accommodation in their communities, finding local halls for their church meetings.

What these ministers would be foolish to do is look to the large commuter churches to support them. That is very unlikely to happen for the institutional reasons suggested above. The words of Psalm 146v3 would be crucial for these beleaguered ministers: 'Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help' (AV).

Shoulder to shoulder' under these circumstances would not only be a cliche; it could be dangerously misleading. These ministers would need to look to the Lord Jesus Christ to sustain them, use the resources our Lord has lovingly provided them with and ensure that they are properly and humbly accountable within their new Anglican Province.

Julian Mann is vicar of the Parish Church of the Ascension, Oughtibridge, South Yorkshire, UK - www.oughtibridgechurch.org.uk