Like most of its southern neighbors, the diocese's churchmanship heritage is predominantly of the low variety, reflecting the influence of the founders' origins in places like Virginia and South Carolina.

And like the ECUSA in general, the diocese's members are mostly affluent professionals and businesspeople, often among the wealthiest residents of their respective communities, some of whom have maintained Episcopalian affiliation for several generations.

This is especially true in some of the smaller municipalities of Alabama where the Diocese has parishes, which are frequently the only churches within their communities that do not hold to strict biblical inerrancy, stringent personal morality, and stridently conservative politics.

The Anglican realignment movement among conservatives in protest against the consecration of the openly gay bishop Gene Robinson in the 2000s had mostly a minor impact in Alabama.

The 1970 division of the Alabama diocese, for most of its history a statewide body, was necessitated because of strong membership growth (both in existing and then-new parishes) in metropolitan areas like Birmingham, Mobile, Montgomery, and Huntsville going back to about 1945, after the end of World War II.