- I live in the south-east of England, on the outer reaches of Greater London.
- I’m on Twitter as @johnthelutheran and have a Tumblr account under the same handle.
- I’ve blogged since 2004 at Confessing Evangelical.
- I’ve been a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of England since 2004, but also draw a great deal from other Christian traditions – especially the broadly “catholic” traditions of the Church of England, Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.
- I’m a member of the Labour party and its sister party the Co-operative party.
- This site is a place where I can post longer items on theology, politics, science, culture and anything else that takes my fancy, filling in the gap between my main blog and the animated cat gifs of my Tumblr account.
“Curlew River” is the first of Benjamin Britten’s “church parables”. It was inspired by the river Alde between the Maltings at Snape and Iken church (whose tower can be seen in the banner image).
Why choose that as a blog name? Partly because it was near the top of my cognitive rummage pile (as I’m listening to a lot of Britten at the time of writing), partly because I wanted a blog name that was a bit more abstract while retaining some Christian overtones, partly because I love Aldeburgh and its surrounding area, and partly because Curlew River was where Britten pioneered his “curlew mark”: musical notation indicating where the voices and instruments, having been singing and playing independently of one another, should come back together.
This blog is intended to be a place at which the various strands of my blogging over the years can come back onto a single site. In particular, my Wandering Hedgehog and And Then Comes The End blogs are now retired. I may still blog at Confessing Evangelical occasionally, but most of my blogging will now take place here.
