The popular children's fantasy series The Wizard of Oz has captivated audiences for generations.
It has also divided Christians and atheists, who see opposing themes and allegories in its plot.
To many Christians, it's a tale of courage, selflessness, sacrifice, and good triumphing over evil.
Yet, to many atheists, it's a story of human ingenuity and the rejection of God, as symbolized by the exposure of the Wizard as an ordinary man behind a curtain.
Author L. Frank Baum was a churchgoer, although his writings suggest he was more influenced by non-Christian spiritual movements of his time than by traditional biblical doctrine. Baum and his wife joined the Theosophical Society, a belief system that combines mysticism and spiritualism and that rejects Christianity as true. Meanwhile, the Baums sent their children to Ethical Culture Sunday School, which taught morals, not religion.
I'm one of those Christians who has always enjoyed The Wizard of Oz -- especially as retold in the classic 1939 film starring Judy Garland. It's an entertaining fantastical tale of friendship and heart. It's a story of courage and of journeying into the unknown. It's a tale filled with biblical themes. As J.R.R. Tolkien once said, fictional stories are merely myths that point to the "true myth" of Christ.
The atheist argument about the wizard falls flat when you realize Oz remains a world filled with supernatural elements, both good and bad -- even if the wizard is only a man.
But what about the new Universal movie Wicked? No doubt, the title itself may repel some families until you realize it's set in the The Wizard of Oz universe and is based on the Broadway show of the same name.
The opening moments of Wicked are essentially a continuation of the 1939 film, as we watch Dorothy and her companions -- the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion -- walking down the Yellow Brick Road in the Emerald City, moments after the Wicked Witch melted.
"The Wicked Witch is dead!" a child in the Emerald City shouts to cheers.
The Good Witch, Galinda, then visits the city to celebrate with the joyous villagers who join in a powerful chorus, No One Mourns the Wicked. Wicked people, they sing, die alone and "reap only what they sow."
But when the singing fades, a young, curious child asks the inevitable question.
"Ms. Galinda. Why does wickedness happen?" the child asks.
"That's a good question -- one many people find confustifying," Galinda responds, as only she can. "Are people born wicked, or do they have wickedness thrust upon them?"
Galinda continues: the Wicked Witch had a father. She had a mother. She had a childhood. She even had a name: Elphaba.
We then learn a shocking story: Galinda and Elphaba were college roommates -- first rivals but then close friends!
Galinda suggests Elphaba's wicked nature was the result of her environment. She was born with green skin, rejected by her parents, and relentlessly bullied by other children. Even in college, her classmates treated her with cruelty.
To be fair, Wicked is Part 1 in a two-part saga. More than likely, though, it will continue the theme of the Broadway show, which portrayed wickedness as being the result of a combination of personal experiences, societal rejection, and the complexities of one's environment.
Scripture, though, tells us something much different.
"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23).
"Indeed, there is no one on earth who is righteous, no one who does what is right and never sins" (Ecclesiastes 7:20).
"There is no one who does good, not even one" (Psalm 14:3).
The late theologian R.C. Sproul once asked his audience: "Do we sin because we are sinners, or are we sinners because we sin?" The biblical answer, he said, is the former. We sin because it's in our nature. We were sinners from birth. In layman's terms, Children aren't taught to disobey. They do it naturally.
Even so, Galinda's argument holds a nugget of truth. I'm reminded of the haunting Pearl Jam song Jeremy, which tells the story of a child who, bullied and neglected, ultimately reaches a devastating breaking point. Our society is filled with similar stories: teens who were subjected to bullying and were then driven to despair -- often with heartbreaking outcomes. They needed a friend. They needed the hope of Christ.
I shed a tear when Galinda befriended Elphaba. But too frequently, outcasts are left to face the world alone.
Let's return to the core question in the film: Are people born wicked, or do they have wickedness thrust upon them?
People are born wicked. The bullies bullied because they, too, were wicked. Perhaps Hollywood should make a few sequels about why the bullies were wicked, and why their parents were wicked, and why their parents' parents were the same way. Soon, you'd be tracing the origin of wickedness back to the beginning of time, to a man and a woman in the garden, and to a story in Genesis.
Who are the wicked people? They're us -- all of us.
Photo Credit: ©Universal Pictures/Wicked
Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.