McCain shies away from religion talk – Jonathan Martin – Politico.com:
Raised Episcopalian, McCain now attends a Baptist megachurch in Phoenix. But he has not been baptized and rarely talks of his faith in anything but the broadest terms or as it relates to how it enabled him to survive 5 ½ years in captivity as a POW.
Notice how the reporter takes the Baptist view of baptism as being definitive. I’m pretty sure McCain, if he was “raised episcopalian,” WAS baptized as a baby. Baptists, of course, don’t recognize that. They only baptize for church membership. Saying McCain hasn’t been baptized in the Baptist megachurch simply means that he has not joined the Baptist church. That the Baptist view of baptism is the only one secular reporters even know is evident again in the story about the Pope baptizing that Muslim journalist, saying that he was “baptized a Catholic.” As M. Z. Hemingway pointed out, you are baptized into Christ, not into the particular denomination that baptized you, at least according to non-Baptist theologies. Baptism makes you a Christian, not a member of a particular denomination.