John Wesley’s Catholic Spirit and United Methodist Schism

Abstract This paper argues that the inability of the United Methodist Church to live together with difference over human sexuality, represents the failure of twenty-first century Methodists to live out of John Wesley’s catholic spirit. In elevating views on human sexuality to a church-dividing principle, the Gospel as a revelation of God’s reconciling work for the world, has been displaced from the centre of Methodist discourse, an action that will result in exclusionary harm for LGBTQI+ Methodists. Queer holiness is real and a recognition of this is necessary for the fully affirming Methodism of the future.