Shipley, England, is home to a unique event that brings together two seemingly disparate worlds: wrestling and Christianity. Wrestling Church, a monthly event held at St. Peter’s Anglican church, combines the high-energy world of professional wrestling with the teachings of the Bible.
A Match Made in Heaven
Church attendance in the U.K. has been declining for decades, and the 2021 census found that less than half of people in England and Wales now consider themselves Christian. Those who say they have no religion rose from 25% to 37% in a decade. To combat this decline, churches have gotten creative in order to survive.
“You’ve got to take a few risks,” said the Rev. Natasha Thomas, the priest in charge at St. Peter’s. She acknowledged that she “wasn’t entirely sure what it was I was letting myself in for” when she agreed to host wrestling events. “It’s not church as you would know it. It’s certainly not for everyone,” she said. “But it’s bringing in a different group of people, a different community, than we would normally get.”
The Wrestling World Meets Christianity
At a recent Wrestling Church evening, almost 200 people packed into chairs around a ring erected under the vaulted ceiling of the century-old church. The atmosphere grew cheerfully raucous, as fans waved giant foam fingers and hollered “knock him out!” at participants. Some longtime churchgoers have welcomed the infusion of energy.
“I think it’s absolutely wonderful,” said Chris Moss, who married her husband Mike in St. Peter’s almost 50 years ago. “You can look at some of the wrestlers and think” — she scrunched her face in distaste. But talking to them made her realize “you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.”
A Life of Faith and Wrestling
Gareth Thompson, 37, is the charismatic leader of Wrestling Church. He’s a mix of preacher and ringmaster, wearing a T-shirt that says “Pray, eat, wrestle, repeat.” Thompson says the outsized characters and scripted morality battles of pro wrestling fit naturally with a Christian message.
“Boil it down to the basics, it’s good versus evil,” he said. “When I became Christian, I started seeing the wrestling world through a Christian lens. I started seeing David and Goliath. I started seeing Cain and Abel. I started seeing Esau having his heritage stolen from him. And I’m like, ‘We could tell these stories.'”
A Charity that Goes Beyond Wrestling
Thompson’s charity Kingdom Wrestling runs training sessions for adults and children in a back room of the church, along with women’s self-defense classes, a men’s mental health group, and coaching for children who have been expelled from school. For many in the close-knit community of U.K. wrestlers and fans, religion is a new ingredient, but not an unwelcome one.
“I’m mainly here for the wrestling,” said 33-year-old Liam Ledger, who wrestles as Flamin’ Daemon Crowe. “It’s a bit’surreal’ when baptisms are held between bouts.” “It works both ways,” he said. “There’s people that come here that are big on religion, and they’re here for all of that sort of stuff. And then they go, ‘Oh, actually this wrestling is sort of fun.'”
A Growing Community
Only a handful of people have gone from watching the wrestling to attending Sunday-morning services at St. Peter’s, but Wrestling Church baptized 30 people in its first year. Thompson plans to expand to other British cities, and one day, he says, he may start his own church.
“People say, ‘Oh, wrestling and Christianity, they’re two fake things in a fake world of their own existence,'” Thompson said. “If you don’t believe in it, of course you will think that of it. But my own personal experience of my Christian faith is that it is alive and living, and it is true. The wrestling world, if you really believe in it, you believe that it’s true and you can suspend your disbelief.”
Thompson’s vision is of a community that brings together people from different backgrounds and faiths to share in the passion of wrestling and the teachings of Christianity.