Tiny Minnesota town to vote today on allowing white supremacist church

[WhiskeyGrinder]

https://www.startribune.com/tiny-minnesota-town-to-vote-today-on-allowing-white-supremacist-church/573344361/

By John Reinan Star Tribune

A small, quiet Swift County town is set to decide Wednesday whether it will become a regional gathering place for a Nordic heritage religion that's been identified as a white supremacist group.

The City Council in Murdock, Minn., a community of 275 residents some 115 miles west of the Twin Cities, has scheduled a vote on granting a permit allowing the Asatru Folk Assembly (AFA) to use an abandoned Lutheran church as its third "hof," or gathering hall. The group operates two other halls in California and North Carolina.

The group's arrival has sparked a wave of activism in this farming community along U.S. Hwy. 12, where the local grain elevator dominates the landscape. After the AFA purchased the church earlier this year for $45,000, area residents formed a group called the Murdock Area Alliance Against Hate and turned out in force at a previous council meeting where AFA leaders made a plea for understanding.

About 50 people showed up at that October meeting, nearly all of them expressing opposition to the religious group. Organizers said they plan to protest outside Wednesday's meeting as well, even though it will be held online with no members of the public physically present.

[hlthe2b]

1. So will human sacrifice be part of this "Nordic Heritage" religious organization?

Gotta be authentic, after all.

[Solly Mack]

2. How is that not a hard "NO"?

nearly all of them expressing opposition

Nearly? Nearly?

WTF, people!

It's a hard "No!".

[mahatmakanejeeves]

3. They might not have a choice.

Time to crank this up again:



Source: https://blog.library.gsu.edu/2012/03/23/secularists-descend-upon-d-c-for-reason-rally/

[lindysalsagal]

4. Yes ok you're right of course ....BUT

This hate group probably stands against all other religions but their own. So, if they're known to intimidate or harm other people expressing their own beliefs, then, it would be constitutional to keep them out of town.

[Hortensis]

5. Astatru/Folkish paganism is one manifestation of a large social phenomenon

on both left and right, especially among a lot of millennials, away from organized religion or reason-based secular beliefs to "occult" belief systems, like

Marianne Williamson's sort of cosmic spirituality, other forms of secular spirituality, mysticism and magical thinking, astrology, paganism, "unbundled" religious beliefs where people pick and choose from whatever appeals from a secular and religious smorgasbord, and so on. Respect for science and measurable truths is typically seen as a barrier to understanding greater truths and gaining true wisdom.

The subgroup Asatru is one of the resuscitated, what the SPLC calls Neo-Volkish beliefs, which are not just pre-Enlightenment and pre- Ages of Reason and Science but pre-Christianity "pagan" beliefs.

Apparently in this era many of these Folkish-type sects are being taken over by white supremacists. I'm remembering about now that Third Reich/Nazi ideology combined a lot of this kind of mysticism and ancient beliefs with modern Christianity. And of course the pure blood lines and subjugation of women.

From the Southern Poverty Law Center:

NEO-VOLKISCH

Born out of an atavistic defiance of modernity and rationalism, present-day neo-Völkisch, or Folkish, adherents and groups are organized around ethnocentricity and archaic notions of gender.

... Present-day Folkish adherents also couch their bigotry in baseless claims of bloodlines grounding the superiority of one’s white identity. At the cross-section of hypermasculinity and ethnocentricity, this movement seeks to defend against the unfounded threats of the extermination of white people and their children.

A late 2017 Instagram post by the Ásatrú Folk Assembly (AFA), perhaps this country’s largest neo-Völkisch hate group, exemplifies how Folkish adherents profess their urgency for preserving Folkish ways. The post’s caption, drawing on a popular racist meme, reads: “In these mixed-up times it is important to remember not only that it is okay to be white but also that we owe to our descendants the same sturdy roots from which we ourselves have grown.” ...

https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/neo-volkisch

[Klaralven]

6. What To Do When Racists Try To Hijack Your Religion

As white supremacists marched through Charlottesville, the high priest of a pagan religion looked on with horror from Reykjavik, Iceland. It wasn’t just their racist message that bothered him. It was that their banners bore the symbols of his religion: Ásatrú, also known as heathenry.

“I think it’s obscene,” the high priest, Hilmar Hilmarsson, said of the way white supremacists are coopting Norse symbols like Thor’s hammer because they believe the Vikings were a pure white race. This appropriation has been underway for a few years—not only in the United States, but also in Sweden, Germany, Canada, and elsewhere—and it’s rattling many of those who practice the Ásatrú faith in its birthplace. “We are absolutely horrified,” Hilmarsson told me.

Ásatrú is a new religious movement that attempts to revive ancient polytheistic traditions—like the worship of Thor, Odin, Freya, and other gods and goddesses—from Iceland’s pre-Christian past. The modern revival started with 12 men and women who met at Reykjavik’s Hotel Borg in 1972, and over the past few years it’s really taken off. Ásatrú is now the largest non-Christian religion in Iceland, and the fastest growing. It counts over 4,000 members, Hilmarsson said (the country’s total population is just 335,000). For the first time in a millennium, a new temple is being built to accommodate followers of Iceland’s old Norse religion. It’s set to open next June.

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/11/asatru-heathenry-racism/543864/

Actually, Swift County Minnesotans are probably more concerned that they are Neo-Pagan and not Christian than that they are racist.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

7. Follow up:

https://www.startribune.com/tiny-minnesota-town-to-vote-today-on-allowing-white-supremacist-church/573344361/

The people of Murdock, Minn., will be getting a new neighbor. The City Council voted Wednesday night to grant a permit allowing the Asatru Folk Assembly (AFA) to use an abandoned Lutheran church in the Swift County town as its third "hof," or gathering hall, in the United States.

Meeting online because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the council kept its video camera turned off, meaning that other meeting attendees couldn't see the members' faces. Despite repeated requests from the online audience, council members refused to identify who voted for or against the permit, passing it on a voice vote without a roll call. One member on the five-person council could be heard voting no.

"We as leaders of the city of Murdock want people to know that we condemn racism in all forms," Mayor Craig Kavanagh said before the council voted in favor of an organization that religious scholars have identified as a white supremacist group.

Before the vote, council members heard from Don Wilcox, the city attorney, who told them that they faced possible legal jeopardy if they voted against the AFA based on its beliefs.