One of the things I find most fascinating about modern-day Paganism is the attempt to re-imagine and re-construct the spiritual pathways of the European past (note: for my purposes, I define Paganism as pre-Christian European religious traditions and their modern revivals, though this is not to meant to disparage spiritual traditions of other regions), and also to adapt these bygone traditions to modern society. Thus I am blogging on a computer instead of carving a runestone, for example.
With regard to Asatru/Heathenry and the revival of pre-Christian, Germanic-Nordic-Scandinavian religious traditions, something I find very interesting is how many modern day Asatruar in the USA are deeply involved with reimagining and reconstructing the lifestyle and religious beliefs of Viking era Scandinavia, but often seem to have no interest in the further evolution of Scandinavia beyond the Viking era. Now I know one way to explain this is to say, post-Viking, Scandinavia was Christianized, so who cares about it after that? Well, I do.
I have traveled to all the Scandinavian countries, most recently Sweden in spring of 2009, Iceland and Norway in spring of 2007, and also lived in Iceland on a Fulbright graduate student fellowship in 1996. Modern Scandinavia is extremely admirable and impressive, in my view. Strong economies; healthy people; beautiful landscapes; progressive social policies; cultures that retain the old and embrace the new, from rock-carvings to Nokia. It seems to me that the industriousness, imagination and sense of curiosity of the Vikings of the past did not go to waste, in fact never went away at all. These countries have continued to evolve, and the modern-day "Vikings" are just as worthy of respect as the legendary ones of old. I do not know if many American Asatruar share my feeling, and I think part of the reason is politics. In my experience, many American Asatruar are small-town, rural-oriented folks, either by birth or by later in life choice, and they tend toward a conservative, right-of-center political viewpoint that is opposed to the kind of quasi-socialism of the modern-day Scandinavian nations, where "social democracy" (the more respectful term) provides much more security and support to the population than what we see in the USA. I wish we could learn more from the modern Vikings, but I suppose the current health care debate shows how threatened most Americans are by strange, foreign ideas like universal health care. Just call me "Lefty the Viking."
Showing posts with label Germanic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Germanic. Show all posts
Thinking in terms of heritage, not race
Tonight, let me start by saying I am very gratified by the thoughtful responses my blog entries are receiving. Click on the "comments" button below each blog entry to see these fine contributions. I do have veto power to publish or not publish comments, but it will be my policy to try to publish all comments except those that are vicious and abusive. One respondent queries why I am focusing on the problem of racist or Nazi attitudes within Asatru/Heathenry, as opposed to other Pagan groups with similar issues. This is a valid complaint which I take seriously, and in response I would have to say that first of all, it is beyond my knowledge and abilities to explore this issue in all the different possible varieties of Paganism that are out there. Asatru is what I know best and what most concerns me, but I would hope the author of that complaint understands that I am a supporter of Asatru. I am speaking from "within the family," so to speak, and not concerned with sugarcoating difficult issues to create a more pleasant public image. Future postings will deal with other Pagan groups, I can assure you of that.
As my earlier post explained, in a passage which I fear may have been overlooked, my mind is fixed on the Asatru-Nazi-racism problem these days because I have been working on a scholarly article specifically intended to debunk the association between Asatru/Heathenry and Nazism/neo-Nazism. As my Asatru friends and colleagues are all non-racist and anti-Nazi,to the best of my knowledge, I had started this project expecting it would be EASY to disentangle Asatru from Nazism and racism, but the sticky issue I have run across is that there are indeed a small number of neo-Nazis who purport to be believers in the Norse gods, and that in addition to that, there are many Asatru believers, who are by no means neo-Nazis, who place a high priority on ancestral ethnic identity that in my view is potentially problematic, because it does sometimes seem to walk a line between pride in heritage and a possible unconscious attitude of racism.
This is very personal to me because my first attempt to reach out to an Asatru group
back in the 1980s introduced me to a white supremacist, ultra-racist version of
Asatru based in Florida that so disgusted me that I avoided all contact with
Asatru or Heathen people for many years. It was only when I lived in Iceland in the mid-1990s and got to know people in the Asatru Fellowship there that I felt reassured that Asatru could truly be a spiritual movement and not a racist one. As some of you know, I am an academic and have researched and published on Asatru in scholarly publications, and in my writings, I have always tried to defend Asatru against the charge that it is racist, and this includes my current research project about Asatru groups' efforts to dissociate themselves from any kind of racism, neo-Nazism, etc.
In another forum, I had an exchange with an Asatru believer who spoke about "having pride in one's own race" as a key element of their interest in and faith in Asatru. In approaching Asatru or other forms of Paganism I would like to express an alternate point of view. I don't see Asatru being about pride in the "white race" at all. I see it as a matter of loving and taking pride in the spiritual dimension of the cultural heritage of Scandinavia and/or Germanic Europe, not the "white race" per se. Being white or Caucasian is not any special achievement; it is just an accident of birth. However, learning about Scandinavian/Germanic heritage,
developing a sense of spirituality rooted in that heritage--now THAT is an
achievement, based on an intelligent thought-process and a personal decision.
I take pride in the people I know who have worked hard to cultivate an
Asatru/Heathen spirituality, but it is not because they are white. If I were to
meet a person of African or Latino descent who had similarly dedicated him or
herself to Asatru/Heathen spirituality, I would welcome them, and I hope you
would too, and I would not think any less of them because of which color womb
they fell out of. I don' t think the circumstances of our birth are really so important, as they are quite arbitrary and beyond our control, unless you believe that our birth-situation is determined by karma or something like that. In my thinking, what is far more important is what we make of ourselves after our birth, through our own effort, intelligence and understanding. I know plenty of white people who are cretins and jerks, and aside from our sharing the same pale skin,I don't really feel all that much in common with them. I have lived in Japan and felt much more in common with people I met there who impressed me with their nobility of character than with many ignorant, closed-minded, self-satisfied white people I meet in America. On the religious level, most white Americans are Christians, as I am sure you have also noticed!, so I also don't feel any particular "white" spirituality that bonds us together. This is why I believe Asatru or Heathenry is best defined in terms of a particular spiritual-cultural heritage, not a particular race.
I see the same applying to other forms of Paganism based on the past cultural heritage of a particular region, such as Slavic, Celtic, Baltic, etc. If you relate well to that heritage, and find that it exerts a spiritual pull on you, then it is well and good for you to develop spiritual practices based on that heritage, even if you are of a quite different ancestry. Of course, if you have ancestry related to a particular region and cultural tradition, that might be all the more reason why you would feel attracted to it, and I know many Asatru believers reason thus. Where I part ways with some is that I do not believe ancestry, or race, should be the key criterion of faith or fellowship. It is just one possible path up a very high mountain.
Certainly the gods, whatever they may be or how we may conceive of and connect to them, are beyond race and narrow tribal boundaries, and I cannot believe they mean for us to be narrow and limited in our understanding of the world and approach to life. The Vikings were all about expansion and connection to other parts and peoples of the world, were they not?
All for now.
As my earlier post explained, in a passage which I fear may have been overlooked, my mind is fixed on the Asatru-Nazi-racism problem these days because I have been working on a scholarly article specifically intended to debunk the association between Asatru/Heathenry and Nazism/neo-Nazism. As my Asatru friends and colleagues are all non-racist and anti-Nazi,to the best of my knowledge, I had started this project expecting it would be EASY to disentangle Asatru from Nazism and racism, but the sticky issue I have run across is that there are indeed a small number of neo-Nazis who purport to be believers in the Norse gods, and that in addition to that, there are many Asatru believers, who are by no means neo-Nazis, who place a high priority on ancestral ethnic identity that in my view is potentially problematic, because it does sometimes seem to walk a line between pride in heritage and a possible unconscious attitude of racism.
This is very personal to me because my first attempt to reach out to an Asatru group
back in the 1980s introduced me to a white supremacist, ultra-racist version of
Asatru based in Florida that so disgusted me that I avoided all contact with
Asatru or Heathen people for many years. It was only when I lived in Iceland in the mid-1990s and got to know people in the Asatru Fellowship there that I felt reassured that Asatru could truly be a spiritual movement and not a racist one. As some of you know, I am an academic and have researched and published on Asatru in scholarly publications, and in my writings, I have always tried to defend Asatru against the charge that it is racist, and this includes my current research project about Asatru groups' efforts to dissociate themselves from any kind of racism, neo-Nazism, etc.
In another forum, I had an exchange with an Asatru believer who spoke about "having pride in one's own race" as a key element of their interest in and faith in Asatru. In approaching Asatru or other forms of Paganism I would like to express an alternate point of view. I don't see Asatru being about pride in the "white race" at all. I see it as a matter of loving and taking pride in the spiritual dimension of the cultural heritage of Scandinavia and/or Germanic Europe, not the "white race" per se. Being white or Caucasian is not any special achievement; it is just an accident of birth. However, learning about Scandinavian/Germanic heritage,
developing a sense of spirituality rooted in that heritage--now THAT is an
achievement, based on an intelligent thought-process and a personal decision.
I take pride in the people I know who have worked hard to cultivate an
Asatru/Heathen spirituality, but it is not because they are white. If I were to
meet a person of African or Latino descent who had similarly dedicated him or
herself to Asatru/Heathen spirituality, I would welcome them, and I hope you
would too, and I would not think any less of them because of which color womb
they fell out of. I don' t think the circumstances of our birth are really so important, as they are quite arbitrary and beyond our control, unless you believe that our birth-situation is determined by karma or something like that. In my thinking, what is far more important is what we make of ourselves after our birth, through our own effort, intelligence and understanding. I know plenty of white people who are cretins and jerks, and aside from our sharing the same pale skin,I don't really feel all that much in common with them. I have lived in Japan and felt much more in common with people I met there who impressed me with their nobility of character than with many ignorant, closed-minded, self-satisfied white people I meet in America. On the religious level, most white Americans are Christians, as I am sure you have also noticed!, so I also don't feel any particular "white" spirituality that bonds us together. This is why I believe Asatru or Heathenry is best defined in terms of a particular spiritual-cultural heritage, not a particular race.
I see the same applying to other forms of Paganism based on the past cultural heritage of a particular region, such as Slavic, Celtic, Baltic, etc. If you relate well to that heritage, and find that it exerts a spiritual pull on you, then it is well and good for you to develop spiritual practices based on that heritage, even if you are of a quite different ancestry. Of course, if you have ancestry related to a particular region and cultural tradition, that might be all the more reason why you would feel attracted to it, and I know many Asatru believers reason thus. Where I part ways with some is that I do not believe ancestry, or race, should be the key criterion of faith or fellowship. It is just one possible path up a very high mountain.
Certainly the gods, whatever they may be or how we may conceive of and connect to them, are beyond race and narrow tribal boundaries, and I cannot believe they mean for us to be narrow and limited in our understanding of the world and approach to life. The Vikings were all about expansion and connection to other parts and peoples of the world, were they not?
All for now.
Nazism, Paganism and Christianity
In the course of this summer, I have been working on an article exploring the relationship between the Nordic/Norse/Germanic Pagan movement Asatru and the German Nazi regime. Because certain members of the Nazi party like Alfred Rosenberg and Heinrich Himmler made use of old Germanic folklore, myths and symbols to promote Nazi ideas of racial and cultural superiority, it has often been assumed that all those who express a serious spiritual interest in Nordic or Germanic mythology and pre-Christian traditions "must" also be Nazis or fascists. My original inspiration to undertake this project was my acquaintance with many modern-day Norse Pagans (also called Heathens) who completely reject and deeply resent the idea that their beautiful spiritual tradition from ancient Europe has anything to do with the completely modern form of militarized political insanity that was Nazism. I expected to write a quick study exposing the superficiality of the Nazis' appropriation of Germanic Paganism and the absurdity of associating modern-day Norse/Germanic Pagans with Nazism, but my research took some unexpected turns that I find quite troubling and worth sharing.
My exploration of the Nazi period essentially confirmed my earlier view that Nazi usage of Pagan myths, symbols and traditions tended to be quite superficial, mainly oriented toward "proving" the greatness of the Aryan-Germanic race, as was the main thrust of Nazi culture and propaganda. What was surprising was discovering how very Christian many Nazis were, whether we talk about leading figures like Hitler and Goebbels or the rank and file. Though the Nazis did end up persecuting many Christians who refused to cooperate with them, this should not be taken as a sign that the Nazi were "anti-Christian" or rejected Christianity. Not at all! Most Nazis, including Hitler and Goebbels, saw their horrific regime as the logical extension of pro-German-nationalist forms of German Protestantism and the long-running anti-Semitism within both Catholicism and Protestantism. And, while the Nazi attempt to take over and reformulate Christianity in an ultra-German, anti-Semitic manner may be seen as a perversion of Christianity, it must be acknowledged that this perversion was well-rooted in certain forms of Christianity long before Adolf came along. Two books I would strongly recommend in this regard are "The Holy Reich" by Richard Steigmann-gall, and "A History of Catholic Antisemitism" by Robert Michael.
My other surprise was finding out that there are indeed a certain number of modern-day Norse Pagan/Asatru/Heathen groups that embrace ideas of racial superiority that are somewhat Nazi-like. Some of these are openly neo-Nazi, and the question then arises as to whether these are really "Pagans" at all or just Nazis posing as Pagans and manipulating Pagan symbolism, mythology and traditions much as the original Nazis did. I think the truth is that today, while many, and probably the majority of modern-day Norse Pagans completely reject Nazism and its attendant racism and anti-Semitism, there is a certain minority of Norse Pagans who inhabit a belief system that either slightly echoes, or even openly endorses, Nazi attitudes and ideas about race and related issues. My Asatru friends who completely reject all such racism and fascism will have to be vigilant in rejecting and refuting this line of thinking, as it has not gone away, it is still out there.
Returning to the theme of Nazified Christianity, I feel there are very disturbing parallels with modern American politics. Just as Nazi Christians had an unshakable conviction that Germany was a chosen nation especially beloved by God and Jesus, and that Germans had a natural right, if not an obligation, to conquer Europe in the name of Reich and God, I see some conservative Christians in the USA as centering their view of the world around a similar blend of nationalism, militarism, racism and religious conviction. The fear and hatred that is shown to Muslims, to immigrants, to foreigners, all the while saluting the flag and praising Jesus, is something that I think is very frightening. Substitute "America #1" for "Aryan Master Race," and anti-Hispanic, anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant attitudes for the Nazis' anti-Semitism, though anti-Semitism is not entirely lacking here either, and you will see that there is a extremely noxious brew cooking here.
As a supporter of modern Paganism, I am concerned that this ugly mood could also end up being turned against Pagans, for being "un-American," un-Christian," etc. I call on all my Pagan friends to be alert in the months ahead.
On the less disturbing and more inspiring side, my research also exposed how the Nazis really could not find much in the ancient sources of Germanic myth and folklore to support their views of racism and anti-Semitism. When one goes back to the sources, the evidence is very clear: Norse Paganism is not a race-based form of spirituality. The old texts speak of tribal affiliations and upholding personal honor, but there is nothing about race. The gods themselves are known to consort with others such as giants! So, those who want to use Germanic Paganism, Asatru or Heathenry to make a case for racial hatred do not have firm ground to stand on. This is a good thing to note and be proud of.
My exploration of the Nazi period essentially confirmed my earlier view that Nazi usage of Pagan myths, symbols and traditions tended to be quite superficial, mainly oriented toward "proving" the greatness of the Aryan-Germanic race, as was the main thrust of Nazi culture and propaganda. What was surprising was discovering how very Christian many Nazis were, whether we talk about leading figures like Hitler and Goebbels or the rank and file. Though the Nazis did end up persecuting many Christians who refused to cooperate with them, this should not be taken as a sign that the Nazi were "anti-Christian" or rejected Christianity. Not at all! Most Nazis, including Hitler and Goebbels, saw their horrific regime as the logical extension of pro-German-nationalist forms of German Protestantism and the long-running anti-Semitism within both Catholicism and Protestantism. And, while the Nazi attempt to take over and reformulate Christianity in an ultra-German, anti-Semitic manner may be seen as a perversion of Christianity, it must be acknowledged that this perversion was well-rooted in certain forms of Christianity long before Adolf came along. Two books I would strongly recommend in this regard are "The Holy Reich" by Richard Steigmann-gall, and "A History of Catholic Antisemitism" by Robert Michael.
My other surprise was finding out that there are indeed a certain number of modern-day Norse Pagan/Asatru/Heathen groups that embrace ideas of racial superiority that are somewhat Nazi-like. Some of these are openly neo-Nazi, and the question then arises as to whether these are really "Pagans" at all or just Nazis posing as Pagans and manipulating Pagan symbolism, mythology and traditions much as the original Nazis did. I think the truth is that today, while many, and probably the majority of modern-day Norse Pagans completely reject Nazism and its attendant racism and anti-Semitism, there is a certain minority of Norse Pagans who inhabit a belief system that either slightly echoes, or even openly endorses, Nazi attitudes and ideas about race and related issues. My Asatru friends who completely reject all such racism and fascism will have to be vigilant in rejecting and refuting this line of thinking, as it has not gone away, it is still out there.
Returning to the theme of Nazified Christianity, I feel there are very disturbing parallels with modern American politics. Just as Nazi Christians had an unshakable conviction that Germany was a chosen nation especially beloved by God and Jesus, and that Germans had a natural right, if not an obligation, to conquer Europe in the name of Reich and God, I see some conservative Christians in the USA as centering their view of the world around a similar blend of nationalism, militarism, racism and religious conviction. The fear and hatred that is shown to Muslims, to immigrants, to foreigners, all the while saluting the flag and praising Jesus, is something that I think is very frightening. Substitute "America #1" for "Aryan Master Race," and anti-Hispanic, anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant attitudes for the Nazis' anti-Semitism, though anti-Semitism is not entirely lacking here either, and you will see that there is a extremely noxious brew cooking here.
As a supporter of modern Paganism, I am concerned that this ugly mood could also end up being turned against Pagans, for being "un-American," un-Christian," etc. I call on all my Pagan friends to be alert in the months ahead.
On the less disturbing and more inspiring side, my research also exposed how the Nazis really could not find much in the ancient sources of Germanic myth and folklore to support their views of racism and anti-Semitism. When one goes back to the sources, the evidence is very clear: Norse Paganism is not a race-based form of spirituality. The old texts speak of tribal affiliations and upholding personal honor, but there is nothing about race. The gods themselves are known to consort with others such as giants! So, those who want to use Germanic Paganism, Asatru or Heathenry to make a case for racial hatred do not have firm ground to stand on. This is a good thing to note and be proud of.
Labels:
Asatru. Heathenry,
Christianity,
Fascism,
Germanic,
Nazism,
Nordic,
Paganism,
religion
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