Introduction
The mission of The Wesleyan Church is to transform lives, churches, and communities through the hope and holiness of Jesus Christ. As such, we are called to embody the gospel’s transformative message of love and reconciliation in a world still marked continually by division. While acknowledging our failures to consistently live up to our historic commitment to biblical justice, we approach this moment with hope, knowing God’s grace is sufficient to heal what sin has broken.1 The same Spirit that empowered early Wesleyans to oppose slavery now calls us to address contemporary issues of race and racism with courage and hope. This position paper presents a Wesleyan approach to race and racism from biblical, theological, historical, and ecclesial perspectives, providing foundations for understanding these issues and practical guidance for our church communities and related organizations.
The Wesleyan Church recognizes the word “race” is not in the Bible, but for the purposes of our paper, “race” refers to socially constructed categories based on perceived physical or cultural characteristics, while “racism” is a system of beliefs, practices, and structures that assigns differential value to people based on these categories.
Biblical Foundations
From beginning to end, the Bible affirms the sacred worth and dignity of all people. Humanity is made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26–27), and created for relationship with God and one another. This foundational truth gives rise to the biblical concept of shalom, the peace and wholeness of creation as God intended. Sin shattered this harmony, not only separating humanity from God, but fracturing relationships among people, introducing division, fear, and exploitation (Genesis 3–11). From these early accounts, we see the sinful tendency to dehumanize others, patterns seen throughout Scripture and history. When God calls Abraham, he promises to bless “all peoples on earth” through him (Genesis 12:3). The biblical story celebrates ethnic and cultural diversity as part of God’s design, calling the church to embody unity amid difference.
Jesus demonstrates reconciliation by deliberately crossing ethnic, gender, and religious boundaries. He establishes the two greatest commandments: love God with your whole heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:36–40). In John 4, Jesus engages a Samaritan woman, breaking cultural taboos to offer her living water and restore her dignity. When asked “Who is my neighbor?” in Luke 10, Jesus responds with the parable of the Good Samaritan, highlighting how a cultural outsider exemplifies compassion and righteousness. These stories reveal that love transcends ethnic prejudice and that Jesus’ followers must practice sacrificial love to truly serve as neighbors to others.
As the church transitioned from a predominantly Jewish movement, early church leaders wrestled with how to integrate new Gentile believers into the fold. In Acts 6, the apostles respond to complaints that Greek-speaking widows were being neglected in the distribution of food. Rather than dismiss the concern, the apostles appoint wise leaders to ensure fairness as an expression of Spirit-filled community. Later, in Acts 10, Peter receives a vision from the Lord saying that the Gentiles are now included in the kingdom of God. In Acts 15 at the Jerusalem Council, the early church decided not to impose religious or cultural barriers on new Gentile believers. These moments mark the church’s growing awareness that the gospel is for all people.
Powerfully, Ephesians 2:14–16 proclaims Christ as our peace, the One who has destroyed the dividing wall of hostility and made one new humanity. Paul’s vision of the church is not one of cultural assimilation, but of radical unity in diversity, a body where ethnic, cultural, and social differences are not erased, but reconciled together under the banner of the risen Christ. This unity is made tangible when people of all backgrounds come together to share in the sacraments, breaking bread and sharing the cup as one body in Christ. Racism, therefore, is more than a moral failing, it is a theological contradiction to the reconciliatory nature of the gospel. This vision finds its climax in Revelation 7:9, where every nation, tribe, people, and language worship together before the throne.
Wesleyan Theology
Building on these biblical foundations, Wesleyan theology offers rich resources for addressing race and racism, beginning with the conviction that God’s grace extends to all people.
Prevenient grace, sometimes referred to as “the grace that goes before,” testifies that God is already at work in every heart, regardless of race, culture, or background, drawing people to a saving knowledge of Jesus. John Wesley taught that “there is no man, unless he has quenched the Spirit, that is wholly void of the grace of God.” 2 This theological foundation affirms the dignity of every person and calls the church to resist any ideology or system that would deny God’s desire to form a diverse people that will continue the Great Commission.
Out of prevenient grace, our emphasis on holiness is deeply relational and communal. Wesley famously said, “The gospel of Christ knows of no religion but social; no holiness but social holiness.”3 Holiness is not simply an individual pursuit disconnected from community. Holiness is expressed in just and loving relationships with God and humanity. Therefore, Wesleyan theology holds together personal transformation and a responsibility to love and care for others. Our growth in holiness is not complete until it extends to our treatment of others, particularly those on the margins of society. Exclusion, whether by race, language, or culture, is incompatible with the sanctified life. The church is called to be a community where those on the margins are seen, heard, and embraced as indispensable parts of Christ’s body.
Building on these theological foundations, Wesleyan theology emphasizes a call to perfect love, a love that is both cruciform and hospitable. Wesley defined Christian perfection as “a heart habitually filled with the love of God and neighbor.”4 This is not sentimental affection, but sacrificial love modeled after Jesus, who humbled himself for the sake of others (Philippians 2:5–8). Cruciform love means that believers are called to lay down pride, comfort, and privilege to pursue reconciliation with all of our brothers and sisters.
Wesleyan theology thus affirms that all people bear God’s image, that Christ’s blood was shed to make us one, and that sanctification must be lived in community. When the church loves across racial and cultural lines, it reflects the heart of God and becomes a credible witness to the reconciling power of the gospel (John 13:35).
Our Wesleyan History
Driven by a commitment to biblical teaching and a theological emphasis on the love and grace of God, John Wesley and early Methodists were vocal and active in their opposition to human slavery, helping to lead abolitionist efforts in England and in the United States. In the United States, the Wesleyan Methodist Connection was a strong force in the mid-19th-century fight against slavery. Wesleyans publicly opposed the Fugitive Slave Act, supported the Underground Railroad, and carried an antislavery message into the American South, often at great personal cost. Integration and gospel-driven racial justice were not only theological commitments, but a public witness to the gospel.
Beyond the United Kingdom and the United States, Wesleyan and Methodist leaders in Canada supported abolitionist ideals and welcomed formerly enslaved persons through their ministries, particularly in Ontario, where churches and clergy aided Black settlers and helped establish communities for freedom seekers arriving via the Underground Railroad. While the scope and legal context differed from that in the United States, Canadian Wesleyans shared in the early conviction that slavery and racism were incompatible with Christian faith.
As the 19th century progressed, revival movements emphasized personal spirituality over social dimensions of the gospel, marking a critical shift in Wesleyan commitment to biblical justice.
While early Wesleyans had fervently opposed slavery, this moral conviction failed to extend to broader equal rights for African Americans. This inward turn coincided with the rise of Jim Crow laws and discriminatory policies in Canada that restricted opportunities for Indigenous peoples, Black Canadians, and other racial groups. During these crucial decades when reconciliation work was desperately needed, Wesleyans remained largely silent, missing vital opportunities to apply their gospel convictions to these injustices. By the time of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, The Wesleyan Church in both Canada and the United States had shown indifference or even opposition to the movement in some areas and a glaring absence of commitment to racial reconciliation.
Perhaps this is one reason why The Wesleyan Church’s Church and Culture handbook states:
“While our denomination was born in an anti-slavery movement, we have sometimes ignored our own heritage and been guilty of both personal and collective racism and prejudice. For this sin, we have collectively repented and asked for God’s forgiveness, and we intend to strive for complete racial reconciliation, for we know that this is the will of God.”5
In recent decades, The Wesleyan Church has made significant strides in returning to this gospel-centered foundation. We continue to have robust conversations in our churches and communities about the dynamics of race and racism. Our denomination has planted hundreds of multicultural and ethnic-specific churches around the world, recognizing that the gospel transcends cultural boundaries and that every people group deserves to experience Christ in
their respective contexts. From Haitian, Korean, and Hispanic congregations in North America to thriving churches across Africa and Latin America, the church is intentionally reflecting the kingdom vision of Revelation 7:9. The Wesleyan Church embraces the beauty of the global body of Christ. We celebrate these advances as signs of revival in our time, a reclamation of our original commitments to be a church for all peoples.
Practical Matters
The work of repairing and forming sanctifying relationships across racial and ethnic lines is a call for all Christians, not just those in urban or multicultural congregations. Wesleyan churches in rural, suburban, and monocultural settings–every community and context–are not exempt.
Every church is called to embody the holiness of God in its own community, addressing any prejudices and promoting reconciliation wherever it is found.
As a denomination, this commitment extends beyond the local church. Wesleyan higher education, mission efforts, and every ministry organization must participate in the sanctifying work of repairing and forming relationships across racial and ethnic boundaries and caring for those on the margins of society. Institutions shaped by Wesleyan theology must model this spirit of hospitality and repair. The theology of perfect love demands that we reshape structures and relationships that fall short of modeling the kind of racial, ethnic, cultural, and spiritual diversity that the early church sought to model.
The pursuit of reconciliation requires real courage and humility. We cannot claim to believe all people are equal in Christ (Galatians 3:28) while avoiding difficult conversations or making sacrificial changes that help us to build up the diverse tribes, nations, and tongues that comprise the kingdom of God. Perfect love comes at great expense. It requires us to listen, learn, repent, and advocate for others, living into the vision of every tribe, nation, and tongue worshipping King Jesus together (Revelation 7:9). Let us walk together in the Spirit toward justice, healing, and unity, just as our Wesleyan forbears sought to embody.
1 See Article of Religion “9. Sin: Original, Willful, and Involuntary” in The Discipline of the Wesleyan Church 2022 (Wesleyan Publishing House, 2022), 18–19.
2 John Wesley, “Sermon 85: On Working Out Our Own Salvation,” https://wesley.nnu.edu/john-wesley/the-sermons-of-john-wesley-1872-edition/sermon-85-on-working-out-our-own-salvation.
3 Wesley, Preface to Hymns and Sacred Poems, 1739.
4 Verification of quote citation pending.
5 Church and Culture (Wesleyan Publishing House, 2011), 11.
