What is This?

This site is the natural progression of a book project that endeavors to take "The Wizard of Oz" book and see how it relates to a Christian world view. Everyone has a world view, eyes through which everything they see is colored, so everyone sees Oz through some world view. For me as a follower of Jesus, I want to see things the way He does. Rather than bring my ideas to the table, I try to choose to see things His way. Through an interesting process, prompted by my daughter becoming infatuated with the Oz movie and books, I came to recognize things that seemed to be distinctively Christian in the movie. I really thought nothing of it, assuming the author was a Christian. Before long I decided to check out what indeed was L. Frank Baum's world view. I found that he certainly did not claim Christianity but was a Theosophist, even though he did have a bit of a religious upbringing. I then read the book for the first time in it's entirety. I was amazed at the Christian symbolism and was immediately reminded of "The Pilgrim's Progress" by John Bunyon that is obviously allegorical. The more I thought about the apparent symbolism, the more evident it was and the more cohesive it became. That's when I started writing down my ideas and trying to organize them. I charted Dorothy's time in Oz, and what I thought was a few days as suggested by the movie became 40 days. As I read the background of each character as told through their personal testimonies, it became obvious that there was a lot to see and think about. Though I have only begun writing the actual book, each time I sit down with the original text, I am amazed. Amazed that Christians have been so antagonistic toward this book for years. I am from East Tennessee and in at least two local counties there have been famous court cases led by "Christians" trying to remove this book from school libraries. These cases were not a hundred years ago but in the last 15-20 years. I hope that this site will open up dialogue between fans of "The Wizard of Oz" and between Christians. I also hope that we can intelligently relate our individual world views and be informed enough to decide which one is true. We're off...

Biography

I am Mark Lackey, the author that is working on "The Gospel According to Oz" book. I am relatively new to Oz but I take it seriously as I hope you can see. I was introduced to Oz through the movie when I was a child, just as most of us were, but it took having my own children getting excited about Oz for me to get excited and for me to think about it as more than a classic movie. I am married and have three girls, 9, 7 and 3 and attend Grace Fellowship Church in Kingsport, Tennessee. I teach when they let me and am also involved in a prison ministry. I love theology, apologetics and studying other religions. I am by trade a graphic artist and am fortunate to work with some awesome bands and mostly music related businesses. I love most kinds of music, art, movies, reading, and just having fun with the family. You can contact me here.