A queer and Methodist theology of holiness: strategies for queering Wesley's teaching

This project explores a queer theology of holiness with reference to Methodist and Wesleyan tradition and understanding. Methodist and Wesleyan writing on holiness has a long history in both the church and the academy but the literature does not engage significantly with queer concerns or identities. Meanwhile, queer theology has only engaged in a limited way with questions of holiness, which has often been experienced and seen as a repressive category, restraining queer bodies, lives and identities rather than contributing to our flourishing. In other words, the discourse of holiness is often used against LGBT+ people but has not yet been re/claimed for queer theology.
This thesis examines approaches to queering texts and traditions that have been used by queer theologians, characterising them as a palette of ‘colours of queering’, and uses them to create different methodological approaches for queer readings of the texts under consideration. These various approaches to queering are then applied to texts from John Wesley’s Plain Account of Christian Perfection.
Building on this, a queer theology of holiness is proposed, with a discussion of queer Christian perfection, transformation and sin from a queer perspective. These findings demonstrate that holiness and queerness need not be seen as opposed to one another and, when considered together, provide new possibilities for queer engagement with ‘scriptural holiness’. These possibilities offer transformative potential for LGBT+ inclusion in the Methodist (and other) churches as well as offering queer ways of approaching Wesley’s teaching.