When looking for an author's worldview in a text, it is crucial to first have an understanding of popular worldviews. (Follow the link on the right of the page to Mj's Blog, then another link at that page to Worldview Chart for a list and description of popular worldviews). Once you have an understanding of worldviews, you can then begin to deduce an author's worldview by theme's and ideas that he develops in his work. Take for example the Wizard of Oz. An overarching theme is that of the Wizard (of course). What is the Wizard? He's what everybody wants. There's a yellow brick road that leads to him. But when you follow it out, past the lions and tigers and bears, what have you got? As Donald Miller puts it, "just a schmuck behind a curtain" (Blue Like Jazz). He's just some guy that made himself a god, tried to make himself God. This seems rooted in New Age philosophy. Or, perhaps, it makes an atheistic claim? When you pull back the curtain, there is no god. To quote the aforementioned Worldview Chart, "No supernatural explanation is needed. Man is the measure. Man sets the norm." You had some guy, the Wizard, setting the measure for the land of Oz. And when Dorothy and Co. pulled back that curtain, there was no need for a supernatural explanation, was there? There was "The Wizard", just some little old guy pullin' switches and throwin' levers, blowin' smoke, making himself god. So to be honest, as you look at any work to analyze it for a worldview, your own worldview, that tainted filter by wich you view the world, is going to influence what you see. Read what I have written. It should be almost glaring that I am skeptical, even sarcastic, towards both Atheism and New Age. Because I am an adherent of a Judeo-Christian worldview. Now don't get any ideas that I am saying "read into it whatever you wish"; that's postmodernism. That's relativism.
That's wrong.
All I am saying is that what you see is going to be biased.
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