Asatru - A Hard-Time Religion

Some years ago, it dawned on me that Asatru is a “hard time religion.” Take a look at the values we hold dear - things like courage, honor, and strength. Our faith honors heroes, and seeks to reproduce at least some of that heroism inside each one of us.

These things have their uses even in the softest of times, to be sure, but they come gloriously into their own when times are tough. The warlike wanderings of the Migration Age left their mark on us, as did the Viking era. And always, even in times of peace, our people had to fight the less tangible enemies of storm and drought, hunger and pestilence. Hard times were the iron tool that shaped the template of our souls.

The industrialized West has had it pretty easy for a while. We have a bigger problem with obesity than with starvation. We’ve got our fridges stuffed with beer and simple carbs, and our minds stuffed with the programming on television. Life has been good.

However, it looks like all that’s coming to an end. “The end” could come in a matter of weeks or months, if the current financial crisis goes the wrong way. It might happen farther down the line. But sooner or later, daily priorities for most people are going to center more on keeping roofs over their heads and food in their bellies. Vicente Fox, the former president of Mexico, recently had the arrogance to stand in front of an audience of Americans in the Midwest and told them that they’d just better get used to the fact that this country has sent all its manufacturing jobs overseas, because that’s what the global economy requires. Suck it up, gringos, and keep flipping those burgers! Tent cities of the unemployed are springing up around the country, and most of us know people who are losing, or have already lost, their homes. The national debt - well, it just doesn’t bear thinking about.

Sure, it can totter on like this for a while, with luck. But sooner rather than later, the house of cards is going to collapse and America will find itself in something the scale of the Great Depression, only with an incalculable debt piled on top of it.

When that day comes, the values of Asatru are going to take on a whole new urgency.
It will be hard times - and we can handle that.

We need to be ready for this eventuality. Asatruar need to take steps to ensure they can survive, and preferably survive with some comfort, in a world gone mad. Copy the Mormons and set some food aside, for starters. Within the AFA, we will be ramping up our efforts to produce a genuine Community of the Folk. Beyond that, we need to be ready to absorb a lot of people who have never heard of Asatru, but whose current faith is going to be inadequate. Many of them, if we reach out to them, will come our way. Hard times may prove to be good times, for Asatru. Let’s not get caught napping!