The Ugandan Diaspora in Britain and Their Quest for Cultural Expression within the Church of England

AbstractThe article examines the Anglican identity of two Ugandan immigrant communities in Britain and the congregations they have formed in order to foster their social, culture, and spiritual well-being. The two communities are the Acholi, who hail from the northern part of Uganda, and the Baganda from the central region. The former have formed the Acholi London Christian Fellowship while the latter have formed two distinct, yet similar, congregations in two separate London parishes. These are Okusinza mu Luganda (Worship in Luganda) and Ekkanisa y’Oluganda (the Luganda Church). The second is an offshoot of the first one. This article illustrates that religion and ethnicity are often inextricably intertwined, and that for the immigrants, Anglicanism does not merely displace or replace their native culture, but gives it a new sense of direction as they also shape it in the light of their aspirations. In this sense, we can speak of religious ethnicity, which refers to cases where an ethnic group is linked to a religious tradition shared by other ethnic groups.