In Ephesians, Paul tells us,
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
But clearly, the apostle had never been to St. Peter's Anglican Church in Shipley, West Yorkshire, England. Because they very much wrestle with flesh and blood.
England's wrestling church is the creation of Gareth Thompson, who says that he was saved by pro wrestling and by Jesus.
And he wants others to have the same experience.
Boil it down to the basics, it's good versus evil. When I became a 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.'
Which honestly sounds a lot like England's long tradition of mixing drama with the gospel, considering things like the Corpus Christi plays or the Macro Moralities.
And Thompson's wrestling church baptized 30 new believers in its first year. He also teaches women self-defense and mentors kids who have been expelled from school.
Thompson is not the vicar of St. Peter's, though.
That position belongs to Rev. Natasha Thomas (this is an Anglican church, after all).
Still, Thompson sounds sincere enough in his mission:
People say, ‘Oh, wrestling and Christianity, they're two disparate things in a world of their own existence.' 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.
One day he hopes to move Kingdom Wrestling to its own space and start his own church.
My biggest question at this point is: How are the baptisms conducted?
Is it Nacho Libre style?
Or a proper dunking?
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