London’s 'Young Imam' Is Changing How People See Islam — One Video at a Time

“I’d never done social media before,” Sabah Ahmedi told me as he carefully balanced his phone between a napkin dispenser and sugar shaker at a chai shop in South London’s Tooting district. “Never done TikTok, Instagram, Facebook,” he said.  

“Whatever was out there, I’d never done it.” 

These days, you would never guess it. With tens of thousands of followers and multiple viral videos to his credit, Ahmedi — known as “The Young Imam”  — is a social media sensation.  

And, perhaps more importantly, his is a voice for peacebuilding and bridging divides in a time when xenophobia, antisemitism, and anti-Muslim rhetoric and violence are gripping the United Kingdom.

His journey started in 2020 when, fresh out of the Ahmadiyya seminary in Surrey, he was assigned to the press office at Baitul Futuh in Morden, one of Europe’s largest mosques. Feeling called to be a faith leader out of a sense of justice, he said he was blessed to be in the role.   

But he wasn’t very good at it, he says. “I couldn’t write a presser [press release] to save my life,” he said. His boss told him to figure things out, or he might have to find a new position. So, sitting with a friend at the same chai shop, he decided to start a social media account. The plan was to share the daily life of a faith leader in the UK.  

“Here we are now, five years later,” he said as the camera on his phone captured us splitting a slice of banana bread and chatting about his adventures online. “The account has grown into so many things — a book deal, TV appearances, entertainment contracts.”  

More than being Instagram famous, the account has also fostered opportunities for inter-religious understanding in a time of increasing polarization in British society. With a rise in anti-religious rhetoric and hate directed at Muslims like him, Ahmedi knows it’s essential to show a different side to the Sacred — and to do it in a way that is accessible and digestible for as many people as possible. Through 15-second clips and day-in-the-life reels, Ahmedi creates a vibe that is honest and compassionate, inviting viewers in a spiritually fragmented and relationally polarized society to adopt postures of love, openness, and curiosity. 

Outlook Apocalyptic for UK Theology Schools

When the Association of Bible College Principals in the United Kingdom (UK) convened in the summer of 2024, administrators came away with some pretty dire predictions.

Anthony Royle, head of the Kings Evangelical Divinity School in southeast England, told his colleagues that “it seems like 50 per cent of Christian Bible Colleges in the UK will close in the next year or two.”

There are only 30 Bible colleges across the UK, alongside the Church of England’s 23 theological educational institutions. But these are the schools that train ministers for the 16,000 Anglican congregations in England and the dozens of free church denominations. The apocalyptic outlook about the future of British theological education has some worried.

“I don’t know a theological college that does not have financial problems, enrollment issues, or some kind of existential challenge right now,” cultural commentator Krish Kandiah told Christianity Today. “It’s as bad as people are saying.”

Holy divestments: Evangelicals rejoice at Church of England’s fossil fuel divestment

Sometimes, late at night, when her two boys have gone to bed and Eleanor Getson is doing the dishes at the end of the day, she is hit with an almost crippling fear.

“During the day, I can’t stop scrolling through stories about climate change,” said Getson, a 40-year-old evangelical living in Bradford with her husband and two kids, “glaciers melting, islands of plastic in the Pacific ocean, forest fires wiping out millennia of history.”

Sometimes, Getson says, the concern consumes her, “it’s too much to think about and I get this anxiety about what my children will suffer because of us.”

That’s why Getson was delighted to hear the news that the Anglican church she grew up in made the momentous decision to divest from fossil fuels last month. On June 22, the Church of England’s Church Commissioners and Pensions Board announced their divestments from all oil and gas companies.

Pressure on the Church of England to divest from fossil fuel companies has been building for several years as an increasing number of clergy, bishops, and dioceses have made divestment commitments and called for fossil-free pension schemes.

Among them have been evangelicals bringing their own distinctive arguments and motivations to the campaign.