Than your church does teach a different Gospel than the Baptists or Presbyterians. The title could have mentioned the Lutherans and Roman Catholics together, since as I understand it both believe you must be baptized. IIRC that baptism must also only be performed by a member of that church.
As a Baptist we believe you must believe The Gospel in order to be saved, and no works are attached. We believe there are only two ordinances Baptism and the Lord's Supper neither of which imparts saving Grace.
Baptism is NOT absolutely required for salvation and it does not have to be performed by a member of the Church.
The premise of the article is not true and the guy who wrote it, having been apprised of that fact with references to the Catechism and to conciliar documents, has not answered my email, even to disagree with it.
You guys are being played for suckers. He's playing on your fears and ignorance of what we in fact teach.
As I said to him, all I had to do was look up "Baptism" in the index of the Catechism and then "necessity", and there it was. He's wrong. And now he knows or should know he's wrong.
So what shall we conclude from his failure to retract the charge? That truth doesn't matter. And, 'Blessed Assurance' aside, can a fellow who doesn't care about the truth be said to have taken the Truth for his personal Lord and Savior?
“IIRC that baptism must also only be performed by a member of that church.”
Nope.
1256 The ordinary ministers of Baptism are the bishop and priest and, in the Latin Church, also the deacon.[57] In case of necessity, any person, even someone not baptized, can baptize, if he has the required intention. The intention required is to will to do what the Church does when she baptizes, and to apply the Trinitarian baptismal formula. The Church finds the reason for this possibility in the universal saving will of God and the necessity of Baptism for salvation.[58]
http://www.christusrex.org/www1/CDHN/baptism.html
Great stuff there, if you really want to know what the Church teaches, as opposed to what Jack Chick types claim.
You’re misguided on the salvific grace of the Eucharist. We Catholics have had it since the last supper.
In Matthew 26:26, He said, “Take and eat; THIS IS MY BODY.”
In Matthew 26:27-28 He said, “All of you drink of this; FOR THIS IS MY BLOOD OF THE NEW COVENANT, WHICH IS BEING SHED FOR MANY UNTO THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS.”
In Mark 14:22-24, are recorded, “Take; THIS IS MY BODY”, and “THIS IS MY BLOOD OF THE NEW COVENANT, WHICH IS BEING SHED FOR MANY.”
In Luke 22:19-20, are recorded, “THIS IS MY BODY, WHICH IS BEING GIVEN FOR YOU; DO THIS IN REMEMBRANCE OF ME”, and “THIS CUP IS THE NEW COVENANT IN MY BLOOD, WHICH SHALL BE SHED FOR YOU.”
St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures, 22(Mystagogic 4)6, 350AD
“Do not, therefore, regard the Bread and the Wine as simply that; for they are, according to the Masters declaration, the Body and Blood of Christ.”
St. Gregory of Nyssa, The Great Catechism, 37, 383AD
“Rightly then, do we believe that the bread consecrated by the Word of GOD has been made over into the Body of GOD the Word.”
St. Ambrose of Milan, The Sacraments, 4:4:14, 390AD
“You may perhaps say: “My bread is ordinary.” But that bread is bread before the words of the Sacraments; where the consecration has entered in, the bread becomes the Flesh of Christ.”
St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on the First Corinthians, 24:4:7, 392AD
“When you see the Body of Christ lying on the altar, say to yourself, Because of this Body I am no longer earth and ash, no longer a prisoner but free...This is that Body which was blood-stained, which was pierced by a lance, and from which gushed forth those saving fountains, one of blood, the other of water, for all the world. This is the body which He gave us, both to hold in reserve and to eat, which was appropriate to intense love.”
The Eucharist is the source and summit of our faith. If you don’t believe that then your church went off the rails.