Yeah, I think most of my mother's problem with the ELCA was the communion issue because they have open communion and my mom was against that. But over here, there's no separate denomination, it's just Lutheran. Open communion never bothered me, and the Lutheran church here does open. Or...at least we did when we still had a Lutheran church where I live, but they merged with the Protestant Church of the Netherlands about...8 years ago? It was after DS was born...he was the last child to be baptized into the Lutheran church, the week before they closed down. I think it also depends on the pastor and how he approaches it. We had one pastor in my home town who was very negative about the ELCA...we didn't have an ELCA church in our town and there was a family who moved in from North Dakota who had been ELCA and my mom (next door neighbors) invited them to our church. They joined and the daughter was at a bible study...she was only like 15, and a couple of the members ganged up on her and told her that she was lucky she moved to our town so she'd be saved, because the ELCA beliefs were heresy and she would see it after she had been there for a while. The girl never came back to our church, and I certainly can't blame her. But it pretty much comes down to the fact that the pastor had taught that and so, trusting in the leader's biblical training, etc, the members passed that message on. Very very sad. But I've never really understood the differences between MSL, ELCA, and ALC. I know they all branched off from each other, and that ELCA and ALC offer open communion, but beyond that, I have no idea what the theological differences are.
As many know I'm not a 'good Catholic' but I didn't start out that way. It is amazing what you don't think through as a child on your own, you just trust. Now the Jewish friend, well according to my teachings he was going to h*ll. We liked him. We didn't want him to go to h*ll and he certainly didn't want to go to h*ll. So we took him to church during open door time (no mass just open for prayer) and came in front door at back of church. You always dip your finger tip in holy water and do the sign of the cross when entering. Well we took him and Baptised him with the holy water so his sins would be forgiven and he could go to heaven. Yep. We did that. My Mom was appalled when I proudly told her we 'saved' him. She called his Mom to apologize on our behalf. His Mom laughed and said it couldn't hurt and he was lucky to have friends that cared so much about him. Those Nuns really got into our heads where I came from. My Aunt was a Nun, she was one of the meanest women I have ever met in life. 
My adult brain back then would have said the little Jewish boy would go to heaven long before her. 
