In the midst of a serious post from Jane Galt’s Asymmetrical Information on whether Tom Daschle should stop calling himself a Roman Catholic, I found this laugh-out-loud statement (emphasis added):

Think of it like this: if you’re a Methodist, you don’t have to like the wedding service, and you can even tell everyone you don’t like it, even not use it, and you’re still a Methodist. But if you tell everyone the Bible is bunk and that Jesus guy was a real jerk, you may tell people you’re a Methodist, but you’re not one, and it would be reasonable for your clergy to ask you to stop so identifying, except that Methodists are far too polite to ever dream of such a thing.

I think Jane’s identified about the only part of Methodist teaching that might earn one who spoke in opposition to it opprobrium from the church. But I’m not sure that reproach would be much more than a stern talking to (if that). I suppose you can be thrown out of the United Methodist Church, but I’ve never heard of it happening.

Out of curiosity, I looked up what the United Methodist Church says Methodists believe; it was quite an interesting read for this semi-lapsed Methodist who has only taken Communion once in the past decade or so.

(As far as Daschle is concerned, I’m not a Catholic so I could care less what the Roman Church decides to do with him. But if you’re a Catholic and want to be excommunicated for whatever reason, I found this handy guide with a Google search.)