Odin Worship & Anti-LGBTQ Courts Threaten American Pluralism
By: James Finn
Tags: LGBTQ, History, Equality, Religion, Racism

The rise of white supremacist religion in the United States

Did you know gangs of racist white men gather in prisons across the country to practice a white supremacist religion? They meet in chapels, celebrate holidays together, and eat special meals — all despite the fact that prison authorities say the gatherings facilitate violence and pose a threat to general populations. Prison staff want to keep the men apart, but they don’t have a choice. Courts have ruled staff must let racist gangs practice their religion.

Did you know that outside prisons, many of the white nationalists, Proud Boys, and neo-fascists who have risen to such prominence in the Trump era say they practice the same Odin-worshipping religion as the men in those racist prison gangs?

It’s called Ásatrú, related to but not affiliated with an organized religion of the same name founded in Iceland in 1972. Racists and white supremacists in the United States have increasingly co-opted Ásatrú, incorporating elements of the 19th-century Völkisch movement that praised white, Aryan supremacy and served as the ideological foundation of the Nazi Party.

White nationalist street violence — so common it’s reported almost daily on national news broadcasts, — often features protestors carrying flags embossed with a black sun, a symbol of Odinism now widely adopted by neo-Nazi and white-supremacist groups.

The rise of religious privilege in the United States

White supremacist religion is on the rise just as the Supreme Court moves to grant religious institutions unprecedented privileges. Conservative Christians appear hell bent on leveraging the judiciary to discriminate against LGBTQ people, and analysts like Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern say the hyper-conservative high court looks ready to hand them almost everything they want.

Rachel Laser of Americans United for Separation of Church and State recently told Ronald Brownstein of the The Atlantic, “What we are seeing today is this effort to turn religious freedom into religious privilege.” She was commenting on the Supreme Court’s “sustained drive” to grant religious institutions exemptions from neutral civil laws.

She says the Supreme Court is handing conservative Christians “the right to wield religious freedom as a sword to harm others, and frankly to dial back social progress in light of our changing demographics and progress toward greater equality.”

Laser, along with many other analysts, notes the high court seems intent on privileging conservative Christian institutions even as populations of religious-identifying Americans fall — and as white, self-identified Christians find themselves in a minority for the first time.

A brief diversion into paganism and alternative spirituality

Before continuing, I want to make clear that nothing in this article should be taken to imply that Ásatrú or any other neopagan faith system is necessarily toxic or racist.

Icelandic farmer Sveinbjörn Beinteinsson founded the Asatru Fellowship in Iceland in 1972, incorporating worship of old Norse gods with surviving traditions like Moot Horn blasts and Mead Horn gulps. Practices were not based on indigenous or racist claims. Michael Nielsen, a professor of Viking History at Copenhagen University, told Vice Magazine that Ásatrú as practiced in Iceland, “has a holistic, environmental touch — and they feel very closely connected to Mother Earth. All are welcome, no matter your heritage or color.”

Modern depiction of Celtic Earth Mother

Pagan is a word first used by 4th-century Christians of the Roman empire to describe anyone who practiced a polytheistic faith. While they reserved the word primarily for those who worshipped the old Greco-Roman, Zeus-Jupiter pantheon, they did occasionally apply it to Gauls/Celts who practiced a religion that centered around (we think, given the scarcity of written records) a matriarchal Earth deity who was numinous, meaning not conceptualized in human form as Greco-Roman gods were.

Scholars debate the matter but mostly agree that a common Proto-Indo-European mythology gave rise to the Vedic-Hindu, Greek, Roman, and Norse pantheons, while the Earth-mother religion of the Celtic world represented a separate, probably older belief tradition.

They will exclude Black and Jewish people exactly the way Christians want to exclude LGBTQ people. We’ll all be saying hello to a new, religious Jim Crow.

Even 1,500 years ago at the height of the Odinist Norse traditions, syncretic processes facilitated the melding of Celtic religious beliefs with Norse ones. Self-identified neopagans today have continued that tradition as they revive older faiths. Some neopagans focus on the sacred feminine to the exclusion of Norse traditions. Others emphasize the Norse pantheon and Odin.

Only a subset of the latter are racist.

As Dr. Nielsen notes, the form of Ásatrú that originated in Iceland in 1972 is highly syncretic and very compatible with forms of paganism that honor the sacred feminine. As practiced in Iceland, Scandinavia and even in the U.S., Icelandic Ásatrú is not racist or ethnically exclusive. It should not be confused with the religion of the same name that is popular among white supremacists.

The racist form of Ásatrú popular in the U.S. was founded in 1976 by American Stephen McNallen who adopted the term “Asatru” independently to replace the moniker of his former “Viking Brotherhood.” His American version adopted the Völkisch style of the 19th-century version of Odinism that gave rise to Aryan purity beliefs.

McNallen’s Ásatrú is the explicitly anti-Semitic, anti-Black, pro-segregation religion popular in U.S. prisons and among white supremacists on the street. It’s important not to conflate that version with neopagans in general.

Why racist versions of Ásatrú pose a threat to American pluralism

White supremacists in prisons organize around Ásatrú because it gains them privileges and helps them game the system. Prison staff would never allow them to hold explicit racist gatherings, but staff are mostly powerless to stop them from meeting to worship Odin.

Prison inmates have learned to leverage religious freedom to gain privileges they would ordinarily be denied. Racists outside of prison are learning valuable lessons from them.

The Minnesota town of Murdock, for example, recently found itself powerless to deny a permit to a white supremacist organization to take over an old church and use it for regular meetings. The mayor and the town council objected to racists setting up shop in town, but religious-freedom legal principles all but mandated they do so.

Religious freedom problems are already difficult

Arguably, putting up with racists in prisons and small towns like Murdoch is an acceptable price for ensuring all Americans have the right to practice religion. No court should be in the business of evaluating theology or judging sincerity. That would be an impossible task.

I’m not arguing religious freedom is not a important American value. All Americans should have the right to practice the religion of their choice, even if that religion is unpopular.

But we are on a collision course.

The religious freedom pendulum has swung too far, and racists aren’t stupid

Ira Lupu, a George Washington University Law School professor, says the Supreme Court is going too far to privilege conservative Christian institutions. He notes the justices have great leeway in choosing which cases to accept — and that the new conservative majority is choosing very specific ones. He told Atlantic Magazine that “I have never seen such a spurt of religious-liberty cases in such a short time, especially where over and over again there is a victory for religious-liberty claims.”

If, as expected, the high court allows Catholic Charities of Philadelphia to exclude LGBTQ people while executing a neutral municipal contract to provide adoption and foster care services, the court will have crossed a liberty Rubicon. They will call into question decades of case law requiring religious people and institutions to follow neutral civil laws.

Conservative Christians are asking the courts to let them exclude LGBTQ people in employment, education, housing, access to medical services, and public accommodation on religious grounds. An increasingly conservative judiciary is increasingly finding in their favor.

If the trend continues, LGBTQ people will be faced with shopping around for equality, seeking services based on who chooses or doesn’t choose to provide them — by religious whim rather than the dictates of neutral civil law.

Racists won’t fail to notice. Legal principles that apply to conservative Christian institutions apply equally to other religions, as racist gangs in prisons have learned so well.

The U.S. stands at a crossroads of equality

The next two or three years of Supreme Court decisions will decide what we become. If the courts exempt powerful conservative Christian institutions from laws that protect gender and sexual minorities, then pluralism and equality will have been sacrificed on a Christian altar.

Racists and white supremacists aren’t stupid. They’ll leverage the same religious privilege the courts grant to Christians. Racist forms of Ásatrú will continue to grow and gain popularity. Other religions may well get in on the act.

They will exclude Black and Jewish people exactly the way Christians want to exclude LGBTQ people. We’ll all be saying hello to a new, religious Jim Crow.

The nine justices of the Supreme Court need to decide who they are and what they stand for. They can’t privilege Christianity without privileging Ásatrú. They can’t exempt one religion from neutral civil laws without exempting all religions from neutral civil laws.

They’re flirting with racist disaster, and they need to take a step back.

All Americans should be free to practice the religion of their choice. No American should be exempt from neutral laws as as result of that freedom.