In this case “undimmed” is just another way of saying “undarkened,” which I’m sure they also believe is not racist.
They’ve come a long way.
“The soul of Asatru, however, is not confined to the Scandinavian model but encapsulates the belief of all the Ethnic European Folk.”
It seems that the objectionable part of this new new church is it announcing itself to be segregated. A huge swathe of churches in the USA are still de facto segregated institutions, and this fails to raise the same amount of publicity or anger. Had these fake Viking cosplay enthusiasts simply kept quiet about their desire to worship in monochrome, then their odd little church would have vanished amongst all the other racial separation on the most segregated hour of the week.
Er… Vikings traded all the way to the Mediterranean, are known slavers, and are not exactly known for their repressed sexuality…
When the scientists are done making the Covid vaccine, can they start working on one of the longest-lived mental viruses?
There has got to be a cure for these religious outbreaks.
“Religion” is just the excuse for building a white supremacist social club in this case.
That’s the main issue, but not the only objectionable part by far.
The whole thing reads like someone has been rifling through some old Ahnenerbe papers.
One of the best series ever: American Gods
Himmler was interested in the pre-Christian religions of northern Europe, believing that a modern Pagan religion modelled on them could replace Christianity as the primary religion of the German people.[25] Himmler disliked Christianity because of its Semitic origins, its presentation of Jesus of Nazareth as a Jew, and its advocacy of charity and compassion.[25] Later, Himmler privately told his personal physician that after the Second World War, “the old Germanic gods will be restored”.[25]
“ahistorical clusterfuck of racism and nonsensical cultural appropriation” is the most succinct description I’ve ever seen. 
I suggest the Church of St. John Coltrane, Church of Satan, & Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster immediately apply for permits to open in the same town. They’ll have better music & much more swinging services.
I assume you mean The Satanic Temple. The Church of Satan are social darwinists and could find common ground with the AFA.
It would be fun to open new churches in the town, but the town’s hands are actually tied in this case. Churches get incredible protections under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. Basically any church can’t be held to any zoning or planning standard stricter than any comparable non-religious institution. Even the act of trying to oppose it would almost certainly constitute a substantial burden under the law and open the city to a lawsuit.
Yes, thank you for clarifying.
But that is different in, like, a tactical sense. A church that “just happens” to be segregated does testify to current and historic racism, but at least those churches aren’t (openly) trying to argue in favor of segregation.
A church that claims racism as part of its “religious” beliefs is an escalation beyond that, because it’s laying the groundwork to defend racist actions in a practical sense. As you say, there’s no need to advertise yourself as a whites-only church if all you want is to be a whites-only church. So the fact they are advertising it strongly suggests they intend to go further. For example, they might hope to start a whites-only school, or refuse Black customers in their businesses, and abuse the first amendment as a defence of that. And the publicity alone is clearly meant to intimidate non-white people, in much the same way as those “sundown town” signs.
As to whether the town is right to approve this church, my feeling is it’s similar to a town letting private citizens put up those signs. Sure, the Supreme Court might ultimately say you can’t stop it. But even if the wrong side is bound to win, it doesn’t mean you have to pick the wrong side. Why not make the racists be the ones who need a National Guard escort to get to church?
“Virtually all Europeans” are welcome? I’m guessing the closer you get to the Mediterranean the less welcome you are. Greeks, Sicilians and Spaniards need not apply. What about someone with mixed heritage? If you’re half German and half Thai are you excluded?
When they talk about European ancestry, they really mean not having any non-European ancestry.
I know a few people who follow Asatru, some of them non-white. Not only not racist, but pretty open about their religion not being ancient or having continuity with the past. But an attempted recreation or new religion drawing from history and modern Neopagan practice.
It’s pretty interesting, and they’re active about following and incorporating new academic findings.
They’re also agressive about pushing back against the the white supremacist Asatru and Pagan groups.
Viking refers to the act of raiding. The people/culture were the Norse.
ibn Fadlan’s account is rather late and he was in contact with Rus traders in central Eurasia. So not Scandinavia, not Vikings, and potentially not a Norse people. The traditional thing seems to be to assume ibn Fadlan was talking about a Norse/Germanic group that operated around the Volga River sometimes refered to as “Volga Vikings”. But the identity of the Rus people in general is a lot more confused. They may have been Slavic rather than Norse. And whether ibn Fadlan even correctly identified them as Rus is an open question.
From what I understand his account isn’t considered super useful in terms of understanding Scandinavian peoples at all, or related cultures earlier than the 10th century.
Especially since it’s tinged with cultural judgements that might impact interpretation or accuracy.
One example I always thought was good. Especially since it tends to end up in media depictions these days is ibn Fadlan’s description of the Rus washing themselves.
He tells us that they all share the same basin, spit it in it, mixing their snot and what have together.
The common, pop culture take on that is they where ritually washing themselves, sharing the same water and deliberately gobbing in there. With ibn Fadlan’s account helping cement the idea that Vikings were super butch dirty boys.
The more likely explanation is that regular European hygiene practices were clashing with ideas about ritual cleanliness common in Islam of the time. That the Rus were just cleaning themselves, sharing the basins but changing the water. And that this was unusual and gross to ibn Fadlan.
We know from other sources that the Norse generally were pretty much way more into hygiene and cleanliness than average for the time. Christian sources accuse them of being vane to the point of being immasculine.
Which is another one of those unreliable, culturally framed descriptions.
That’s part and parcel of the ridiculous framing for these sort of Viking fetishists. They’re gonna talk about heritage and their forefathers. But they’re play acting a hyper macho, media trope.
I got no doubt they’re all spitting in a bucket and rubbing it all over each other.
