The first was between Martin Lloyd Jones and John Stott in the 1960s. Lloyd Jones warned that faithful evangelicals could never capture the national Church for the Gospel. Stott insisted they could. Stott won the arguments and there followed a powerful evangelical renewal, launched by evangelists like David Watson, Michael Green and perhaps most famously Nicky Gumbel and his Alpha course. Stott was proved right.

Ian Paul argues that the issue facing the Church of England is ultimately theological and that "there is no institutional unity apart from theological coherence." He writes:

Abp Gosselin went on to say that leadership as a Bishop in the Church requires contending "earnestly for the faith entrusted once for all to the saints," and as such demands that we do not abandon either the clear teaching of the Holy Scriptures or the historic interpretation that has been delivered by the Apostles through Christ's faithful Bishops throughout Church history.

The Church of England will be out of step with the majority of the Anglican Communion, the Roman Catholic Church, the Orthodox Churches united with Constantinople, and the many Orthodox Churches of the Middle East... it will be out of step with the Bible. .....the step ...is a shift away from the foundational roots of the scriptures. I urge the bishops to think again ....before they return in July.