My new post, Islamophobia and an American Heathen, is up at Pagan + Politics. You can also find a recent post on this subject by me at PoliticusUSA, here

Christians are always asking themselves, “What would Jesus do?” though there is no real evidence they ever answer the question; perhaps because they don’t want to know. It would likely oppose what they’re so eager to do.

How often do I ask myself, in a similar vein, “What would my ancestors do?” It’s a question that is bound to come up among those who adhere more strongly to historical standards in the reconstruction and revival of ancient religions. We tend to be very ancestor oriented and traditional minded, even as those traditions are being reconstructed and reinterpreted in light of the passing of a thousand years or more.

Of course, I’m not a reconstructionist but a revivalist, if I must take a label. Heathen reconstructionists are no more able to reconstruct the past than Christian reconstructionists. The main reason is that it’s gone and past. Many centuries have passed and the world has changed.

That’s just my opinion and you’re welcome to challenge it. I know there are some pretty strict reconstructionists out there. But look at the context of the past for starters. The climate has changed – twice in some cases, perhaps more if you go back far enough. We’ve had a Little Ice Age and a global warming periods and now an upward trend in temperatures that make a solid case for anthropogenic global warming.

In that respect alone the world is different. Some ways of living will be more or less difficult as a result. Whales are on the decline and protected and my Norse ancestors loved to hunt whale.

The world has also gotten smaller. Communications and technology have changed everything. The three-tiered universe has been discounted. There may still be people who believe the gods are up and the dead below and we humans are in the middle. I suppose a case can be made in a metaphysical sense that there are other ways to look at this point, or maybe multi-dimensional physics could take care of it.

We mostly live in larger communities. We’re not isolated by geography and climate. There is no place we can’t go, no influence we can entirely avoid. Things just aren’t the same.

We can’t even raid monasteries anymore. But then, on the flip side, those Christian reconstructionists, though they might want to, can’t burn us at the stake or pour molten metal down our throats to make us convert either, so there are some trade-offs I can live with.

But my point in all this is to say that I can say, “What would my ancestors do?” in a given situation except that the situation in question would probably never have arisen in my ancestor’s world and he would be ill-equipped to deal with it now, were he here.

We have no idea how our ancestors would have coped with some of the changes of the past ten to twenty centuries. We can try to imagine but there is simply no telling, not with any degree of certainty.

That’s not to say we should just throw up our hands and surrender to a world culture. We have our gods and we have our beliefs and we treasure the wisdom passed down to us by our ancestors. Across the centuries, they have something to tell us, some important things.

Like honor and ancestry, like family and clan, like courage and moderation.  Some of these things are timeless and will serve us as well as they served them. Our ancestors were a pragmatic lot, not given to violent swings of ideological or religious fervor. You might get outlawed like Hjalti Skeggjason, a proponent of Iceland’s conversion, for calling Freyja a bitch, but you wouldn’t get hounded into death and long-term persecution because you refused to abandon Christianity. The Norse ruled in Ireland and Norway and other places without forcing everyone to become Heathens like them.

Historical lessons like this tell us something about what our attitudes towards other religions should be. Respect and honor our gods and defend that honor, but do not impose your beliefs on others. There are other lessons we can learn, which give us some clue as to how our ancestors might respond today. For example, our Heathen ancestors practiced exposure of infants. It might be suggested from this that they would be pro-choice. It seems a reasonable assumption, since they themselves practiced what might be termed abortions after the fact.

But our ancestors also engaged in violent feuds and held entire families accountable for the actions of a single member. These are things most of us would likely not do today. In a small, isolated community such a practice might make sense. It kept social order by forcing clans to police its own. But in today’s world it makes no sense, and most governments discourage feuds. We have laws and courts for such things. So that would be an entirely wrong lesson to learn. My ancestor might draw his sword and kill the man who insulted him. I would not want to do that.

Sometimes you have to ignore the little ancestor on your shoulder. Sometimes you would do well to listen.

But that is largely why I am a revivalist. Our customs and traditions are important, but they must make sense in the context of the 21^st century, not the first or the seventh or the ninth. Even the Amish, isolated as they make themselves, have to abide by the law, and those who oppose being bound by the Ten Commandments or Sharia Law would do well to avoid proposing the enforcement of old Pagan law codes.

So ask yourself what your ancestor would do, but keep in mind when he answers that this is the 21st century America (or wherever) and not 9th century Norway, and if somebody tries to tell you what Jesus would do, remind them that this is 21st century America and not first century Judaea, the Romans are not our overlords and that neither of you are Second Temple Jews.

Richard T. Hughes, Professor of Religion at Messiah College and author of Christian America and the Kingdom of God writing for the CNN BeliefBlog, argues that “If those Christians lived as they are taught to live by the teacher they claim to follow, the American public square would be a very different kind of place.”

It is difficult to find room for disagreement with Professor Hughes’ assertion. After all, as he says, “based on their words and behavior, we may safely conclude that many of the Christians who dominate America’s public square routinely reject the teachings of Jesus, in spite of their claims to the contrary.”

There are a few short rules to follow, and he provides examples of the way in which they are ignored.

Jesus tells his followers to tell the truth.

Jesus tells his followers to make peace.

Jesus tells his followers to turn the other cheek.

Jesus tells his followers to bless those who persecute them and pray for those who misuse them.

Jesus tells his followers to extend justice, especially to the poor and the dispossessed.

Jesus tells his followers to serve as bridge-builders and agents of reconciliation.

And Jesus tells his followers to love one another, even their enemies.

This put me to wondering what all this would mean to a Heathen like myself. Now granted, making such a comparison is not easy. Heathenism is not revealed religion. Our gods did not come forth and dictate to us a list of rules to be followed. The closest thing we have are the “Sayings of Hár” – the Hávamál – sage words of advice offered by none other than Óðinn.

Of course, we also have our prized sagas, and a few other writings, and out of these a distillation has come usually known as the Nine Noble Virtues.

The problem will always be, for Pagans of any stripe, that as Bart Ehrman says of Mediterranean paganism, ”What mattered were traditionally sanctioned acts of worship, not beliefs.”^[1]

With that proviso in mind, we might consider what the American political landscape would look like it if were people by Pagans – Heathens specifically.

In the 1970s the Odinic Right introduced the Nine Noble Virtues:

1. To maintain candour and fidelity in love and devotion to the tried friend: though he strike me I will do him no scathe.
2. Never to make wrongsome oath: for great and grim is the reward for the breaking of plighted troth.
3. To deal not hardly with the humble and the lowly.
4. To remember the respect that is due to great age.
5. To suffer no evil to go unremedied and to fight against the enemies of Faith, Folk and Family: my foes I will fight in the field, nor will I stay to be burnt in my house.
6. To succour the friendless but to put no faith in the pledged word of a stranger people.
7. If I hear the fool’s word of a drunken man I will strive not: for many a grief and the very death groweth from out such things.
8. To give kind heed to dead people: straw dead, sea dead or sword dead.
9. To abide by the enactments of lawful authority and to bear with courage the decrees of the Norns.

The Ásatrú Folk Assembly (AFA) offers a slightly different version:

1. Strength is better than weakness
2. Courage is better than cowardice
3. Joy is better than guilt
4. Honour is better than dishonour
5. Freedom is better than slavery
6. Kinship is better than alienation
7. Realism is better than dogmatism
8. Vigor is better than lifelessness
9. Ancestry is better than universalism

Now it is clear that the Norse wisdom offered here is more about family and kinship than kings and rulers and electorates. But there is wisdom still for people like Sarah Palin:

To be bright of brain       let no man boast

But take good heed of his tongue:

The sage and silent         come seldom to grief

As they fare among the folk in the hall.

A key lesson to be learned here is that what is given should be returned in equal measure, as in the old oaths of fealty. As the Hávamál has it, “pay back gift for gift.” Depending on your translation this means “laughter for laughter” or “mocking with mockery,” and “fraud with falsehood.” In other words, do NOT turn the other cheek and do not hesitate to give back what is returned.

The presidential and vice-presidential debates would have gone far differently in a Heathen context, as the Republican candidates rolled out their spin and stuck to it in the face of every fact revealed. And Barack Obama and Joe Biden remained courteous throughout.

Imagine those debates with two Heathen candidates in place of Obama and Biden.

If you act like a witless oaf, there should be no hesitation among listeners to remain polite or to hold their tongues in return. Do not turn the other cheek but give in equal measure.

Professor Hughes observes that “When Christians so widely and publicly embrace such blatant distortions of the Christian religion, they abandon one of the roles they might have played in America’s public square: fostering civility and dialogue and building lasting bridges of reconciliation.”

Should a Heathen politician act like a Christian when entering politics? It might garner more votes, seeming to be like everyone else, but the focus on honor, on realism over dogmatism, or as I’ve always put it, “good old fashioned Scandinavian pragmatism” the political landscape might be a refreshing place.

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[1] Ehrman, Lost Christianities,  92.

This is a long overdue review of Diana Paxson’s Essential Ásatrú, a book mentioned by S.M. Stirling as a resource for his Emberverse series (previously reviewed here). Diana Paxson is both a Pagan and an author – not only of speculative fiction but of nonfiction works relating to various aspects of Paganism.

Essential Asatru: Walking the Path of Norse Paganism (Citadel Press 2006) is billed as an “accessible guide” to Ásatrú, as well as a “practical guide for its modern followers.” Obviously there is need for such a book. It cannot be denied, as the back cover says, that Heathenism is “often misunderstood.” It is no secret that I feel many works by Heathen scholars fall far short of the mark.

Obviously, there is wide latitude in the reconstruction or revival of any ancient religion. Our sources are always incomplete (in the case of Heathenism deplorably so) and people come at it from a variety of directions, including Germanic (often Saxon) and Scandinavian. Ásatrú has been classified as “Wicca with homework” and I think this fairly assesses the degree of dedication to reviving ancient customs existing in modern Heathenism as opposed to say, Wicca, which is a new religion, or a “reincarnation” as one Wiccan priestess has put it. For that reason alone no single guide can be everything to everyone. That does not mean it cannot provide a useful (and necessarily general) starting point, and that’s what I’m really interested in here.

Essential Ásatrú is divided into three parts:

1) Heroes and Ancestors (which I think is a very good place to start as a Heathen);

2) Gods and Goddesses;

3) Toasts, Boasts and Oaths (which any Heathen knows is very much a part of our ancestral customs – and oaths are generally holy, not only to Heathens but to Hellenes and others as well).

Ms. Paxson begins at the beginning, as it were, tracing history from the Stone Age through the Migration Period and Viking Age before looking at the “conversion” and the modern revival. Again, I think this attention to the historical record is something that sets Heathenism (as well as Hellenism and others) apart from more modern religions like Wicca.

I thought her treatment of our gods and goddesses to be good. Ms. Paxson correctly points out that a man is effeminate if he is submissive in sexual matters, not if he is attracted to men. This is a point often missed even by Pagans today (the same is true of the Romans, where the male is seen as the penetrator). Again, this is a topic I have covered here in some depth.

She also points out that Loki is not necessarily a god at all, though some Heathens treat him as such. On the other hand, I do have a problem with Ms. Paxson’s discussion of “Hella.” There are interesting gaps in Ms. Paxson’s bibliography; for example, she completely ignores Rudolf Simek’s Dictionary of Northern Mythology. This, to me, is inexplicable. As Simek points out, Hel (or Hella as Paxson calls her) is “probably a very late poetic personification of the underworld Hel.” Simek concludes that “On the whole nothing speaks in favour of there being a belief in a goddess Hel in pre-Christian times.” Granted, Davidson states that “a we have a persistent tradition for a goddess of the dead” but this only goes to demonstrate that the matter is far from an open and shut case.[1]

Ms. Paxson admits that Hella is a “shadowy figure in the lore” but points out that “she has become an important deity to a number of heathens today.” This may be, but it seems to me that we should not ignore evidence that Hel was not a goddess at all in the minds of our ancestors, but a late poetic device. People interested in returning to the customs and traditions of their ancestors ought to know where there are doubts about the existence of specific deities (as with Loki). Obviously, there is room for both interpretations and if people want to include Hel in the pantheon an argument can be made for this but equally, an argument can be made that Hel is no goddess at all. In the interest of historical accuracy both possibilities should have been mentioned.

In the second part of Essential Ásatrú, Ms. Paxson offers a brief discussion of sacrifice. I’m not entirely satisfied by this, not only because it is very brief – a mere five pages are devoted to sacrifice and 25 to magic – and sacrifice – not magic, unless you consider all religion magic – was the essence of ancient religion. Ms. Paxson admits this, saying (p. 100) that sacrifice “was universal in the ancient world” and correctly points out that most modern Heathens lack the requisite skills to kill animals and that therefore “our festal food usually comes from the grocery store.”

The discussion of a Heathen altar includes a “Thor’s hammer” which seems here to substitute for a Wiccan“ wand”. I suppose people can put what they want on heir altars but there is no historical evidence for hammers that I am aware of. Gold ring dedicated to Thor, yes. His hammer, no. There can be no doubt that the hammer as an altar implement is a modern, not an ancient, convention.

In the third part of her book Ms. Paxson addresses the subject of toasts, boasts, and oaths. Here she leads us on a discussion about Norse cosmology, wyrd and orlog and afterlife, where she correct points out that “In the lore, we find a variety of possibilities depending on time, place, and even individual preference.” She also discusses the all important virtues, courage, truth, honor and the rest. She does make an interesting comment at the end of chapter 10: “Heathenism is a religion that prizes self-reliance and personal responsibility.”

This is a rather broad and general statement and it does not pay enough attention to the historical record, in my opinion. If you’re speaking of the Viking Age, I would say the focus on self-reliance is closer to true but even then, as Robert Ferguson writes, “Viking Age ethics were based on the opposition of shame and honour.”[2] Our ancestors lived in small communities and the myth of the rugged individualist would have struck them as alien. These small isolated communities put people in great dependence upon each other. It was an age where in the law a family member was responsible for everyone else in that family. You could not be a “rugged individualist” and get by. If you did something wrong, anyone in your family could suffer as a result; the whole community could suffer. The Viking Age broke these old barriers down and so yes, speaking of that later Age I would find some truth in her words.

As James C. Russell writes,

Since the early Germans could not rely upon the protection and assistance of a bureaucratic empire when they were threatened with attack or famine, it was incumbent upon each man and woman of the community to adhere to the fundamental sociobiological principle of group survival embodied in the bonds of familial and communal solidarity. One’s status in society depended upon how closely one adhered to this fundamental  principle. Those who behaved honorably, thereby contributing toward the advancement of their community, were materially rewarded and thus increased their wealth, power, and influence. It is likely that the coalescence of honor, wealth, influence and power within Germanic society inhibited the spread of status inconsistency and its potentially anomic effects, and served to further reinforce Germanic group solidarity.[3]

If there is something modern Heathens ought to be bringing into the present it is this idea of group solidarity and community, not to mention family.

In Chapter 11 she moves on to a discussion of questions and conflicts, discussing UPGs and lore and variation in practice due to time and place, as well as the applicability of the term “earth religion” – all important topics of discussion. She concludes the chapter with a discussion of various approaches to Heathenism, from folkish to tribalist to universalist and makes a comparison of Asatru and Wicca. I find myself in agreement with her statement that while some Heathens denigrate Wiccan-style practices as “Wiccatru” she doubts that “the gods themselves care about the style in which they are worshipped” though she believes (as I do) “that they can be more completely understood and perceived more clearly when honored in a Germanic cultural context.”

The book concludes with an examination of Heathen organizations, online and elsewhere, and she includes a useful piece called “Surviving Your First Heathen Event.”

On the whole, I find Essential Ásatrú to be, if not essential, then close to it – certainly very helpful. Ms. Paxson presents a clear, coherent picture of one possibility of modern day Heathenism and while she picks and chooses from among her sources, which of us do not, for one reason or another? If we know little about the details of ancient Heathen worship, we do know that there were many different types of Heathenism based on considerations of chronology and geology. It would be impossible in the span of two hundred pages to discuss every possibility. In the end, we must all make decisions about what we do and why. We must do the best we can.

If you are new to Heathenism and are looking for a helpful guide to get you started, you can do far worse than this introductory work. It is a step above – several steps in some instances – of some of the books put out by Llewellyn, and better too than some of the books Ms. Paxson includes in her bibliography, which only goes to show that the results of her work are greater than the sum of its parts. Buy the book, read it, use it, and don’t be afraid to broaden your studies outside of it lest you lock yourself into one particular way of being a Heathen without examining the alternatives.

Perhaps best of all, the book is short and easy read, and Ms. Paxson illustrates her points with modern day examples, of how a group of Heathens go about being Heathen. And that, after all, is what Heathenism is all about – not philosophical discussions, not talking about it – but doing it, being it. As I have always said when asked for advice, the best way to become a Heathen is to go out there and be one, and this book, I think, will help you with that.

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[1] Rudolf Simek, Dictionary of Northern Mythology (D.S. Brewer 1993), 138; H.R.E. Davidson, The Road to Hel: A Study of the Conception of the Dead in Old Norse Literature (Greenwood 1968),  75.

[2] Robert Ferguson, The Vikings (Viking 2009), 31.

[3] James C. Russell, The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity (Oxford 1994), 120.

My new article on Pagan+Politics, inspired by the American Family Association’s demand to stone a killer whale and SeaWorld Orlando’s curator, deals with the issue of projecting ancient law codes into the present. You can find it here.