Methodist History Between the Posts: John Wesley, Thomas Blair, and Help for a Condemned Prisoner

September 17, 2026

Before Methodism became a denomination, John Wesley and his Oxford friends regularly visited people in prison. One of them was Thomas Blair, a gay man who was arrested after he was caught with another man. In eighteenth-century England, a relationship between two men could lead to public condemnation, imprisonment, and even the threat of death.

We do know that Wesley and his companions believed Blair was being treated unjustly. John Clayton, one of Wesley’s friends who had legal knowledge, helped advocate for him. They examined evidence, prepared a defense, attended his trial, continued visiting him, and helped raise money connected with his release after he received a fine.

Other people criticized the Holy Club for helping someone surrounded by this kind of accusation. Wesley helped anyway. That does not make him a modern LGBTQ+-affirming theologian; his other writings reflected the assumptions of his century. The story matters because, when a stigmatized prisoner was in danger of being abandoned, Wesley’s ministry moved toward him rather than away.

Methodist history does not give us a perfectly progressive hero. It gives us a question: When society has already condemned someone, will the church add to the condemnation—or help them obtain care, dignity, and justice?

Learn more: LGBTQ+ and the Early Methodists and the UMC history podcast discussion of Thomas Blair.