Irresistible grace is not part of what any synod that I am familiar with teaches.
The 10,000 ft view of what I was taught, and what most synods that I know of teach, is that God makes the first move. We can not by our own reason or strength know or love God. The example that I was taught as a teenager was that a nomad living on the plains of what is now Russia in the year 40 AD would likely not have heard of Jesus. He would not, by his own reason, have a chance to know Him. Could that nomad have been saved? Well God can do what he wants, but if he was it was not the normal way.
How ever, we can reject God. As you said, forced love is not love it is rape (to be crude). Of those that I grew up with, even in my own family, some have rejected God. They did so by their own choice. Were they predestined to fall away and go to hell? No, that is not what the LCMS (or any) Lutheran Synod teaches. For one thing, double predestination was explicitly rejected. While there is life, there is hope. So to say that those who have (or appear to) fall away are damned is something we can't say. For we are not God, and exist in time while He does not.
And you are right in that we Lutherans do not view things the same as the Catholic, or the Orthodox. If we did, we would probably be in Communion with one or the other. But then again, there are differences between the two also.
Well, diversity has never been in short supply in the Portestant movement. Protestants always have a choice of siding with Arminius or Calvin.
Were they predestined to fall away and go to hell? No, that is not what the LCMS (or any) Lutheran Synod teaches
So, the Missouri Synod does not teach that God predestines some to slavation?
So to say that those who have (or appear to) fall away are damned is something we can't say
Doesn't your Synod teach sola fide? Doesn't that mean that man is saved by faith alone and nothning esle?
Where does free will come in and for what reason?