I never, until I found this forum, even knew of different Lutheran flavours. In Sweden, there's the Lutheran Evangelical Church of Sweden (CoS), which to me seems to be light years away from any US Evangelical movement. My ex-wife and I used to attend to CoS services most Sundays. It would have been difficult to find other Protestant varieties, but never the less, we once or twice went to the "Lutheran missonary church" (my translation), which is almost indisinguishable from the CoS. At least once every Christmas, we went to the German congregation in our home town, not just because of the music, but because we felt at least as much at home there, as in the CoS.
One summer, when I was working in Frankfurt (Germany), she went there as well, and on a few occasions we attented a local church. No problem at all; the preaching and the ceremonies made us feel perfectly at home. (It should by now be obvious that we both are fluent in German.) I rather find it strange that when we lived in Coventry (England) for a couple of months, we visited the famous cathedral, but never attended any services.
I have to confess that I, for the wrong reasons, never went to a Catholic church. That was to a significant part due to my misunderstanding of the transubstantiation dogma, which I erroneously thought was worlds away from my beliefs, as stated in the official creed of the CoS. Now I've finally (?) come to the conclusion that transubstantiation and consubstantiation are equally ridiculous.
I have been a guest in a Sikh gurdwara, and wouldn't have had any problems with attending their ceremonies more in depth. I like their equality, but I can't accept the reincarnation thing.
I have visited a mosque, the Delhi Baha'i temple (amazing in every way!) and a Hindu temple, but just as a tourist and/or a student of religions. I avoided an ISKCON temple. I hope that I will be open to influences that will make my life increasingly more acceptable to myself and to other people.
