Wrestling matches held in UK church to attract new parishioners

Wrestling matches inside St. Peter’s Anglican Church in Shipley, England. Photo: AP News

Wrestling matches are now being held inside the Anglican Church of St. Peter in the northern English town of Shipley in an effort to draw more people to church, according to the Associated Press.

The idea of staging matches in a church ring came from 37-year-old wrestler Gareth Thompson, who says that both Jesus Christ and wrestling have played a major role in his life.

Thompson claims that "the outsized characters and scripted morality battles of pro wrestling fit naturally with a Christian message,” the outlet reports.

“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.’”

Church attendance in the UK has been declining for decades. According to the 2021 census, less than half of people in England and Wales now identify as Christians. The proportion of those claiming no religion rose from 25% to 37% over the past ten years.

“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.

At a recent Wrestling Church evening, almost 200 people – older couples, teenagers, pierced and tattooed wrestling fans, parents with excited young children – packed into chairs around a ring erected under the vaulted ceiling of the century-old church.

The initiative has received mixed reactions, but the matches held in the church are attracting considerable audiences.

The Associated Press notes, however, that only a few spectators have transitioned from watching wrestling to attending Sunday morning services at St. Peter’s. For many in the close-knit community of U.K. wrestlers and fans, religion is a new ingredient, albeit not an unwelcome one. Thompson, meanwhile, plans to expand into other UK cities and “open his own church.”

As previously reported, a teacher in England was dismissed over his Christian beliefs.

Read also