Godspy and The Ninth Day

The following excerpt is from the Image Update.

As we do our own share of daily web surfing at work, we’re always on the lookout for other sites on faith and culture to add to the Image favorites. At the top of our list right now is Godspy, a Catholic-based online magazine that, like Image, is all about God-with-us minus the religious gloss. (The editors often lovingly summon up the words of Flannery O’Connor: “there is no reason why fixed dogma should fix anything that the writer sees in the world.”) Best if navigated by topic, Godspy is an all-you-can-read buffet of articles covering a range of contemporary issues, including a respectable sampling on art, literature, and film for all us Image-types. Headlining the “Culture” section right now is an article on a new film by Volker Schloendorff (A Handmaid’s Tale, The Tin Drum) called The Ninth Day, which turns on the moral crisis of Abbé Kremer, a priest on temporary leave from the Dachau concentration camp who is faced with the choice to cleave to his confession or preserve his life. A resourceful melding of historical events and people, The Ninth Day enfolds a collision of politics and the church—much like Roland Joffé’s The Mission—without losing sight of the deeper foundation of story, relationships, and theme. Paired with an interview with the director, the review makes a tasty sneak peek of a master filmmaker’s work and his encounter with the gravity of conviction. Judging by the way Godspy keeps its commentary free of the Christianese that’s often an unfortunate byproduct of processing contemporary culture through the gears of faith—there’s more where that came from.