What Makes A Methodist A Methodist? - A Conversation with Rev. Matthew Sichel

Rev. Matthew Sichel is an Ordained Deacon in the Northeast TCAT of the Global Methodist Church. He disaffiliated from the Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church recently and is actively involved in leading the conversation around how Wesleyanism needs to continue forward as a distinct religious tradition in the future. As a deacon, he serves to bridge the world of the church and the world of the academy. As such, he has a lot of patience and energy for the theological issues that often intimidate others, confidently leaning into how and why it is that each is important. In this conversation, he and I cover a number of nonnegotiable theological distinctives of Wesleyanism as he laid out in a recent Facebook post. For those of you who are interested to understand what is at stake with a number of these issues, as well as why it is that the GMC might consider taking a more narrow approach to doctrine around these issues, consider diving in with us and seeing if Rev. Sichel might persuade you to summon more passion for these doctrines!

Links:

Scott Kisker Article on how 20th century Methodists broke Methodism - https://firebrandmag.com/articles/segregationism-and-the-corruption-of-methodist-discipline

NT Wright on Rapture - https://ntwrightpage.com/2016/07/12/farewell-to-the-rapture/

John Wesley’s beliefs around end times: https://firebrandmag.com/articles/john-wesley-and-the-end-times

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