January / february 2006:

Editor's Letter
What drives an Orthodox Jew to attend a professional wrestling event put on by a north Georgia church as a way to evangelize for Christ?

By Benyamin Cohen


I think I can safely say that I don't have a church addiction. At least I think I don't. As many of you may recall, I spent last summer traipsing through a variety of Atlanta churches to find the answer to one of the universe's most shrouded mysteries: Is church more fun than synagogue? The religious road trip (which was documented in our Sep/Oct issue) made stops at a Catholic, Episcopalian, Methodist, Evangelical and even a large 15,000 member African American Baptist mega church.

Well, I thought I was done. But it turns out that was just the beginning. A rabbi I know and respect confirmed my own suspicion: This had the seeds to be a great sociological experiment. What can an observant Jew learn about religion (both his own and that of others) by attending their worship services? He suggested I attend more churches to see what I could learn.

And this is why, on a recent cold winter night, I found myself driving to the Harvest Church in a small town just outside of Athens, GA for Ultimate Christian Wrestling.

I've heard of people doing some crazy things in the name of the Lord — martyrdom and murdering infidels comes immediately to mind — but never had I seen this: Christian wrestling. And not just any Christian wrestling. This was Ultimate Christian Wrestling.

It's only hours after the conclusion of the Sabbath and I had hastily rushed out of synagogue to get on the road. For the moment, at least, I had ditched my own God in favor of watching half naked men wrestle in the name of religion. A decision, I'm quite sure, that would soon be added to the already long list of transgressions in the eyes of my rabbinic father.

The moment I enter the church gymnasium and see hundreds of people heads bowed in prayer, I realize these people are dead serious.

In the ring stands a beefy 290-pound dude (yes, a dude) appropriately named Rob Adonis. He's wearing a blue spandex wrestling get up. It's what you would expect any typical wrestler to wear — except Rob's pant legs have huge crosses plastered on them with white electrical tape.

Even Adonis, whose day job is as a middle school special education teacher, admits that the idea of wrestling for God is a bit strange. "When I get to heaven, the first thing I'm going to ask God is, ‘Where in the world did you come up with that idea,'" he tells me later as sweat drips down his face As far as Adonis is concerned there is a minister for every ministry and this, well, this just happens to be his calling.

At the moment, half naked in his wrestling regalia, he's accepted that calling by leading the audience in a prayer service. The crowd shouts a glory-filled collective "Amen!" as the prayer comes to a close.

Adonis waves to the crowd and darts back to the control room where he mans the sound and light equipment. Plumes of smoke and half a dozen flashing lights emanate from the stage as two wrestlers burst through a shiny silver curtain.

The wrestlers are dressed one in white and one in black so the audience knows which one represents good and which one evil. The crowd, comprised of both children and adults, is going wild. One teenager has a cross painted on his cheek.

I spot an elderly man, hooked up to wires, dragging along an oxygen tank on wheels. I assist him in finding a seat and ask why he came out tonight. "This gives me strength," he says matter-of-factly. "This is a boost of energy I can't get from the TV or anywhere else. God is here tonight and I want to be here with Him."

Sincere thoughts, but one I personally find hard to grasp as I watch the white spandex guy (good) pummeled to the floor by black spandex guy (evil). The good guy has been bruised and beaten for our sins. But the crowd starts clapping in unison and white spandex guy is resurrected through their powers. This was no ordinary passion play.

This routine continues for the next two hours, with mini sermons by the church's pastor interspersed between matches. At the end of the evening, one of the wrestlers in the ring grabs the microphone to talk about Jesus. Eerily echoing President Bush talking about terrorists, he intones, "You're either for Him or against Him. That's the facts."

He peppers his speech with a slew of Forrest Gump aphorisms: "A dusty mind is a dirty life." "Gratitude is an attitude." "You've got to be in control of your soul."

We rise as the wrestler leads us in prayer and asks if any of us would like to accept Jesus in our lives. "Step away from your old lifestyle," he says in a booming voice. A sappy love song pulls at the heartstrings as it plays over the loudspeaker. To my surprise, several people approach the ring. A middle-aged bald man begins to bawl. A college coed embraces her friend as she cries her way to the front. And a handful of children, no more than 10 years old, lean on the ropes.

The woman selling nachos tells me that more than 30 children have given themselves over to Christ in the last month alone after these matches. Since its inception, UCW has inspired hundreds to be saved.

Throughout the night, my innate cynicism bars me from taking this too seriously, but the folks here couldn't be more serious. This was real to them. While I had been doodling in my notepad, they had actually just encountered a reverent religious experience.

It wasn't like we had just witnessed a wheelchair-bound grandmother miraculously walk or any other awe-inspiring act of God. I saw nothing more than overweight men in tights participate in a fake wrestling match. How could such an objectively absurd act to me be so inspiring to others? Was I the shallow one? These thoughts swirl through my head as I pull out of the parking lot and embark on the long drive home.

The wrestling reminds me of another form of Christian worship my wife told me about. There's a group called the Power Team that once visited her high school. The bulky, beefy "soldiers of God" use feats of strength like breaking baseball bats, bending steel bars, crushing concrete walls, and ripping phone books in half to show how much they love Jesus.

Yes, this is crazy. Objectively. But taken in the sincere spirit of religious rejuvenation, this was the real deal. Indeed, the more I thought about it, the more I realized I had more in common with the wrestling audience than I had originally thought.

For starters, there are more than enough things that we Jews do to fulfill some sense of spiritual nourishment that would look utterly bizarre to an outsider. On the festival of Sukkot, we shake a specially designed palm branch every which way and just hope we don't poke someone's eyes out. On Passover, we treat leavened food like it has the plague. In the heat of every summer, we observe three weeks of mourning where we don't get haircuts or shave. And these examples are just the tip of the iceberg. Judaism, I'll be the first to admit, is replete with seemingly ridiculous rituals.

But, obviously, the rituals mean something. Going through the motions, adhering to God's commandments (as odd as they sometimes may be), is a religious experience in and of itself. So who am I to judge others when you can catch me every Saturday walking a mile to synagogue even in the pouring rain?

As I drive deeper into the moonless dark night down Interstate 85, I realize that there's a sweet charm to the way this community practices their religion, through their basic battles of good vs. evil. Judaism is complex and complicated — we have 613 commandments to keep — and is fret with prohibitions against what we can and should do. The Talmud even dictates how a Jew should tie his shoes.

My road to religiosity is littered with deeds which I deem odd. But the audience at Ultimate Christian Wrestling has a clearer vision, a markedly unfettered path to spiritual fulfillment. And I got a glimpse of that tonight. And for that I am eternally grateful to Adonis, the crowd, and, I guess, to God Himself. After all, gratitude is an attitude.



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