This study examined the dynamics of performed religious identity in Ugandan churches and analyzed how the tension between performative self-presentation and perceived authenticity affected individual faith experiences and congregational social cohesion. Employing a mixed-methods research design, the study collected data from 384 church members across six purposively selected congregations representing Pentecostal, charismatic, mainline Protestant, and Catholic traditions in Kampala and Wakiso districts, utilizing structured questionnaires, semistructured interviews with 36 participants, eight focus group discussions, and six months of observational fieldwork. Quantitative analysis included univariate descriptions of key variables, bivariate examinations of demographic associations, and structural equation modeling to test hypothesized relationships among performative religiosity, perceived authenticity gap, faith commitment, and social cohesion constructs. Results revealed that performative religiosity was moderately high across the sample (M = 3.78, SD = 0.82), with participants reporting greater perceived inauthenticity in others (M = 3.27) than in themselves (M = 2.61), indicating self-serving biases in authenticity assessments. Denominational variations showed Pentecostal and charismatic churches scoring significantly higher on both performative religiosity and authenticity gaps compared to mainline Protestant and Catholic congregations, while demographic patterns indicated that women, younger participants, and those with higher education engaged more intensively with performative practices and reported greater awareness of authenticity discrepancies. The structural equation model demonstrated excellent fit (CFI = 0.96, RMSEA = 0.056) and revealed that while performative religiosity had a modest positive direct effect on faith commitment (β = 0.18, p = .001), this was offset by a stronger negative indirect effect through authenticity gap (β = -0.20, p < .001), resulting in a non-significant total effect. For social cohesion, performative religiosity showed no significant direct effect (β = 0.09, p = .084) but a substantial negative indirect effect through authenticity gap (β = -0.23, p < .001), indicating complete mediation. Authenticity gap demonstrated strong negative effects on both faith commitment (β = -0.48, p < .001) and social cohesion (β = - 0.56, p < .001), explaining 38% and 52% of variance respectively. Qualitative findings corroborated these patterns, revealing that church members experienced performance-authenticity tensions as sources of spiritual anxiety, employed various cognitive strategies to manage dissonance between ideal and actual religious selves, and described how suspicions of widespread inauthenticity undermined communal trust even while maintaining institutional participation for social and pragmatic reasons. The study concluded that Ugandan churches faced a self-undermining dynamic where emphasis on demonstrable spirituality generated the very skepticism about authenticity that eroded both individual faith and collective solidarity, suggesting that addressing this crisis required fundamental reconsideration of how religious communities balance performative and authentic dimensions of spiritual life rather than simply condemning hypocrisy or demanding greater sincerity from individual believers.