Black Anglicans in Focus

This article is concerned with an analysis of three focus groups which were set up to explore the relationship between the African-Caribbean community in the UK and the Church of England. The focus groups were designed to find out how Black Anglicans think and feel about issues relevant to their mode of involvement in the Church of England, and to discover something about the frame of reference within which members of the focus groups interact with the institution of the Church. The focus for research participants was not their Christian faith but the racialized context in which that faith was expressed. The research participants were aware of their Blackness in a very White Church where they clearly had a minority status. The majority believed that the Church of England was reaching out to urban communities. It was also felt that the Church, particularly the hierarchy, were not doing enough to support Black people who were the victims of institutionalized racism

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