On Oct 7, 11:37 am, Richard Nixon <rich... at (no spam) example.invalid> wrote:
On Tue, 07 Oct 2008 05:55:11 -0700, Diana wrote:
On Mon, 6 Oct 2008 19:24:23 -0700 (PDT), Darrick
darrick_even... at (no spam) yahoo.com> wrote:

I do love irony.

I don't quite see the elements of irony with Darrick and his tirades
against his (n-2)th religion.

He seems consumed by it, unlike me, who left the the LDS church and went on
to be a lousy lutheran but maybe a better and less-conflicted person.

Ahhh, the principal daughter church of the harlot.

Let's see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutheran

The split between Lutherans and the Roman Catholic Church arose mainly
over the doctrine of justification before God. Specifically,
Lutheranism advocates a doctrine of justification "by grace alone
through faith alone because of Christ alone," distinct from the Roman
Catholic view of works in addition to faith.[citation needed]
Lutheranism is also distinct from the Reformed Churches, another major
church which arose during the Reformation. Unlike the Reformed
Churches, Lutherans have retained many of the sacramental
understandings and liturgical practices of the pre-Reformation Church.
Lutheran theology differs considerably from Reformed theology in its
understanding of divine grace and predestination to eternity after
death.

Traditionally, Lutherans have accepted monergism, which states that
salvation is by God's act alone, and reject the doctrine that humans
in their fallen state have a free will concerning spiritual matters.
[26] Lutherans believe that although humans have free will concerning
civil righteousness, they cannot work spiritual righteousness without
the Holy Spirit, since righteousness in the heart cannot be wrought in
the absence of the Holy Spirit.[27] Lutherans believe that the elect
are predestined to salvation

Presently, Lutherans are divided over how to interact with other
Christian denominations. Typically, more conservative Lutherans assert
that everyone must share the "whole counsel of God" (Acts 20:27) in
complete unity (1 Cor. 1:10) before pastors can share each other
pulpits or communicants commune at each other's altars. On the other
hand, more liberal Lutherans are willing to share communion and to
allow preachers from other Christian traditions in their pulpits.

Although the Lutheran World Federation has been in ecumenical dialogue
with the Roman Catholic Church since shortly after the Second Vatican
Council, it was not until 1999 that far-reaching ecumenical relations
were established between the Lutheran World Federation and the Roman
Catholic Church when they jointly issued a statement, the Joint
Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, that declared
commonality of the Roman Catholic and Lutheran doctrines on
Justification.[2]. While a number of Lutheran theologians saw this as
a sign that the Roman Catholic Church was essentially adopting the
Lutheran position, most Lutheran theologians disagreed, claiming that,
considering the public documentation of the Catholic Church's
position, this assertion does not hold up.

The largest organizations of Lutheran churches around the world are
the Lutheran World Federation, the International Lutheran Council, and
the Confessional Evangelical Lutheran Conference. These organizations
together include the great majority of Lutheran denominations around
the globe.

The Lutheran World Federation (LWF)-aligned churches do not believe
that one church is singularly true in its teachings. According to this
belief, Lutheranism is a reform movement rather than a movement into
doctrinal correctness. For that reason, a number of doctrinally
diverse LWF denominations, now largely separated from state control,
are declaring fellowship and joint statements of agreement with other
Lutheran and non-Lutheran Christian denominations.

By contrast, the Confessional Evangelical Lutheran Conference and
International Lutheran Council as well as many unaffiliated
denominations such as the Church of the Lutheran Confession (CLC)
maintain that the orthodox confessional Lutheran churches are the only
churches with completely correct doctrine. They teach that while other
Christian churches teach partially orthodox doctrine and have true
Christians as members, the doctrines of those churches contain
significant errors.

Definitely less conflicts or headaches there.