I’ve never had jetlag so bad as what I’ve suffered the past few weeks. I’ve been in 8 countries and 3 continents the past two months, so that probably has something to do with it, but still. It’s kept my brain dull, completely disinterested in reading anything heavy or in writing reviews of the stacks of books I finished in the early summer.

I say all this because, when I couldn’t sleep this morning, I wanted to grab something light that my mushy brain could handle. I’ve got a small collection of comic books and graphic novels on my phone, and this one appeared interesting enough to try. By the way: it’s free for download just about anywhere, so feel free to seek it out and see if you agree with my points below or not.

Engaging Style

For starters, I loved the style of this book, as the author paraphrases an already short letter from Paul to the Galatians, yet in comic-book form. The drawings are clear, professional, and sometimes nuanced with subtext that you might catch if you study them closely.

I’d be interested in pursuing more projects like this, visualizations of God’s Word in creative, artistic forms. I’ve seen it in books like The Book of Revelation (with art by Chris Koelle) and the much less palatable Marked by Steve Ross about the Gospel of Mark, but I’ve also enjoyed such projects in musical form, like The Romans Album by Psallos and composed by Cody Curtis. I see from the Psallos website in fact that they also have albums on Philippians, Jude, and Hebrews—so I’m definitely going there when I’m done with this post!

A Twisted Gospel

While I loved the style of this book and agree with McKay’s main argument (that Christianity is a relationship of love to experience not a religion that enslaves people), I can’t agree with his misreading of Scripture, his twisting of the Gospel, or his promotion of his own religious opinions while simultaneously mocking every Christian denomination imaginable.

Yes, true Christianity is not a religion. And just like the earliest Jewish “Christians” (i.e. the Galatians) fell into the trap of exchanging the synagogue for the church building and the Old Law for a new set of dos and don’ts, so we modern Christians are also susceptible to exchanging the truth of God for a lie. We need to be careful that we don’t get so caught up in religious systems that we ignore the true teachings of Christ which (he suggests) can be summed up in one word: LOVE. These are important traps to identify, and kudos to McKay for making the attempt.

Where McKay fails, though, is in suggesting that love itself and the goodness that flows from it are enough to save a person. His opening line states it explicitly: “Jesus taught that you only need to love God and your neighbor (with all your heart) to be a Christian (Luke 10:25-28)” (1). While you can’t argue with Jesus’ clear words, taking these verses some intentionally ignores Jesus’ other teaching on sin, repentance, and forgiveness—just like McKay ignores Galatians 1:4 in his opening discussion. In fact, other than the self-righteousness and hypocrisy of religious people, McKay makes no mention at all of sin! There’s also no mention of repentance, the death and resurrection of Jesus, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, or the process of sanctification.

McKay’s Pet Peeves

Besides promoting a twisted, sacrifice-free, works-based Gospel, McKay also has several pet peeves that he apparently can’t stop talking about—and, no, it’s not because he’s “quoting Paul.”

For whatever reason, he reserves a particularly strong hatred for water baptism. Several times in Galatians, the Apostle Paul references the issues of circumcision, an Old Testament, God-ordained rite of separation and holiness that, since the resurrection of Christ and advent of the Spirit had since been annulled. To modernize the text, though, McKay chose to substitute “circumcision” for “baptism,” as if they were the same rite, as if each were simply a human idea. He considers water baptism nothing more than an updated Jewish rite the that synagogues-turned-churches forced upon their converts to keep them submissive. He even rewrites the Bible to say that Titus wasn’t baptized! The Bible never says this, nor did Paul ever write that he hopes the religious leaders would drown in their own baptistries. Yikes!

McKay also rails against any “Christians” who would choose to gather together in the name of Jesus in a way that’s not to his own personal liking. If they met outdoors barefoot and with flowers in their hair to sing ballads about love and peace, perhaps then he’d not have a problem. But Heaven (and McKay) forbid that Christian meet in a church building led by a pastor who preaches the Bible!

Conclusion

When a guy misreads and misinterprets Scripture like this, even what godly and biblical points he might have made elsewhere are marred by the same human filth he purportedly writes against. McKay hates religion: I get it. But in this brief, fallacious retelling of Galatians, he replaces worldly, human religious systems with his own worldly human religious system, and it’s just another false Gospel we can add to the ever-growing list of damnable works-based heresies.

Love and goodness can’t save a person, no matter how much they quote Jesus. Love is the fruit of the Gospel, not the seed of it. And salvation isn’t the freedom to do your own thing—like pick and choose your way through the Bible and read it however you want, as McKay has done here with Galatians.

The grace of God through His gift of faith in the blood of Jesus as He draws us by His Spirit is the only thing that can save us, and it saves us from our deserved punishment in Hell because of the sin that separates us from God. Faith, repentance, gratitude, change—this is God’s process as laid out Scripture. And when it’s done God’s way, then yes, love will happen, because Jesus was of course right: “By this shall everyone know that you’re my disciples, if you love one another.”

©2024 E.T.