Iron and Wine and God: Sam Beam's Biblical Imagery

Patrol Magazine's Micah Towery takes issue with Christianity Today's review of Shepherd's Dog, the latest from Iron and Wine (Sam Beam). I think his criticism is a little pointed, but valid. Maybe more interesting is that along the way, Towery shows some insight into Beam's biblically-saturated perspective:

Beam’s agnosticism is very southern in its construction. Flannery O’Connor once described the south as a “Christ-haunted” landscape. In the same way, God haunts Beam’s music. He clearly feels both the presence of God as well as the difficulty of belief, and his ambiguity about belief that makes his portrayal of it so compelling. He is skeptical of it, but also recognizes its complexity (hence, Beam’s gentle mockery of those who talk about a “pocket map to Heaven”).

Shepherd's Dog made my Top Ten Albums of 2007, so I thought I'd pass this on.