The notion that you need to be baptize to be saved disregards the gift of Jesus. If someone foreign to the faith believes and then gets into an accident, then he'll go to hell base on that theology. It is a very bad theology.
Time and again I see these kinds of statements--but this isn't what any of the historic churches believe. Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans, et al do not believe that a person goes to hell simply because they haven't received the Sacrament of Baptism.
The problem seems to stem from a much deeper issue when it comes to the topic of salvation: Namely there are some who see salvation in strictly mechanical, formulaic terms. It's a very black and white, one either has done X, Y, and Z and is therefore saved; or one has not done X, Y, and Z and is therefore not saved.
That simply isn't how Christianity has approached salvation historically. Salvation is not mechanistic. Salvation, instead, covers the entire broad work of God healing, renewing, and redeeming the world. Our participation in this is our salvation. And this salvation is found in Jesus Christ, by His life and work.
Baptism isn't an obstacle a person much overcome, a work that must be achieved, in order to secure a spot at the pearly gates. Baptism, as a Sacrament, is the means through which God has chosen to act by which He takes Christ and all which He accomplished for us and brings it to us, applying it to us. That is why Paul says in Romans 6 that we were dead, buried, and raised to new life with Christ in baptism. It's why the same Apostle in Galatians 3:27 says all who have been baptized have been clothed with Christ, and in Colossians 2 saying again that we have been buried and raised with Him by baptism. Baptism unites us to Jesus, it brings us into Christ, therefore it gives us new life--a new birth--and we are new creations in Christ. What once was has been buried, and what is raised is the new man, the new life, found in Jesus Christ. That's Baptism. And because that's what Baptism is, then yes we can agree with St. Peter who in his first epistle writes that Baptism now saves us. Not as some mere bath rinsing dirt off our flesh, but as the pledge of a new conscience toward God by the power of Christ's resurrection.
This does not mean that if someone happens to not be baptized and they die before receiving it that they are damned. That's never been the teaching of the Christian Church.
Because, again, it's not some mechanical, formulaic, black or white thing. The working of God in our lives, saving us, is a living and dynamic work of God. And we have His promise that what He began in us He will continue to do until the day the Lord returns.
Trying to figure out who is and who isn't saved seems to be a puzzle that a lot of Christians like playing. But that's not how most of Christianity operates. Instead we put our faith and hope in Christ, trusting in God's grace and mercy. Not just for ourselves, but also for everyone else.
-CryptoLutheran