The Wizard’s Illusion: A Conversation from Oz with Sallie McFague and Others

by Katherine Abetz

Publisher:

Resource Publications

, 2022

Overview

In a world of increasingly strident identity politics, a theological approach, claiming no more than the outworking of subjectivist sentiment, offers no remedy. What if a key factor in this predicament is a misrepresentation of the operation of metaphor? This acknowledged building-block of language looks set to become a mere component of the wearer’s spectacles. The consequences for theology, philosophy, literature, and even the sciences are yet to be charted.

This book takes readers on a journey to the Land of Oz and asks whether our culture, while discarding past errors, can reconnect with the spiritual bonds that underpin language, truth in its various forms, and identity. Companions on the road are Dorothy and her friends, Sallie McFague and the Wizard, Paul Ricœur and C. S. Lewis, and others.

Praise for The Wizard’s Illusion

Sallie McFague opens Metaphorical Theology by referring to The Wizard of Oz. In The Wizard’s Illusion, Katherine Abetz takes up this story to explore language in today’s postmodern Western climate. Her voice is distinctive, illuminating how metaphor, imagery, symbolism, sacrament, and similar verbal concepts ‘work.’ The Wizard’s Illusion will appeal to readers interested in the subtleties and delights of how words and truth interrelate—matters that matter in the post-Trump, English-speaking world.

——Charles Sherlock, Trinity College Theological School (formerly)

Product Details

• Title: The Wizard’s Illusion: A Conversation from Oz with Sallie McFague and Others
• Author: Katherine Abetz
• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Print Publication Date: 2022
• Logos Release Date: 2022
• Pages: 268
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Ebook
• ISBNs: 9781666793819, 9781666793802, 1666793809, 9781666736021, 1666736023, 1666793817
• Resource ID: LLS:9781666793819
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2025-04-22T17:32:50Z

About the Author

Katherine Abetz has a degree in humanities and a doctorate in theology. She is an Australian, hence the double entendre of “a conversation from Oz.” She is co-editor with her husband, Walter, of Swimming Between the Flags, a multi-authored compilation of reflections on the Basis of Union of the Uniting Church in Australia.