Asatru Folk Assembly
The Asatru Folk Assembly, or AFA, an organization of Germanic neopaganism, is the US-based Ásatrú folkish[1] organization founded by Stephen McNallen in 1994.
The AFA is recognized as a 501(c)(3) non-profit religious organization, or church[citation needed] and is based in Nevada City, CA. The organization denounces racial supremacism.[2] Still, McNallen believes in an "integral link between ancestry and religion, between biology and spirituality," and according to Jeffrey Kaplan the organization was founded in part to counteract rumored "universalist," that is, nonracialist, tendencies he discerned in Ring of Troth.[3]
[edit] History
The Asatru Folk Assembly is a successor organization to a group called the Asatru Free Assembly founded by McNallen in 1974 and disbanded in 1986, splitting into the "folkish" Ásatrú Alliance and the "universalist" The Troth.[4] The defunct Asatru Free Assembly is sometimes distinguished from the modern Asatru Folk Assembly by the usage of "old AFA" and "new AFA", respectively. From 1997-2002, the AFA was a member organization of the International Asatru-Odinic Alliance.
In 1999, the assembly acquired land in northern California, aiming to base a communal project with room for agriculture and religious worship.[5]
In the late 1990s, the assembly got involved with the protracted fight over the remains of the so-called Kennewick Man: they claimed that these were the remains of a European ancestor and were allowed to approach, but not touch, the coffin holding him.[6]
[edit] References
- Notes
- ^ Gardell 152, 261.
- ^ From the Asatru Folk Assembly's Bylaws: "The belief that spirituality and ancestral heritage are related has nothing to do with notions of superiority. Asatru is not an excuse to look down on, much less to hate, members of any other race. On the contrary, we recognize the uniqueness and the value of all the different pieces that make up the human mosaic." [1]
- ^ Kaplan, Jeffrey (1997). Radical religion in America: millenarian movements from the far right to the children of Noah. Syracuse UP. pp. 31–32. ISBN 978-0-8156-0396-2. http://books.google.com/books?id=qIilYBbxSbcC&pg=PA31. Retrieved 30 January 2012.
- ^ Strmiska, Michael (2005). Modern paganism in world cultures: comparative perspectives. ABC-CLIO. p. 133. ISBN 978-1-85109-608-4. http://books.google.com/books?id=qx7Tvd99xVAC&pg=PA133. Retrieved 30 January 2012.
- ^ Gardell 261.
- ^ Bay-Hansen, C. D. (2002). Futurefish 2001: Futurefish in Century 21: The North Pacific Fisheries Tackle Asian Markets, the Can-Am Salmon Treaty, and Micronesian Seas, 1997-2001. Trafford. p. 214. ISBN 978-1-55369-293-5. http://books.google.com/books?id=K-BXZB6JmeQC&pg=PA214. Retrieved 30 January 2012.
- Bibliography
- Gardell, Mattias (2003). Gods of the blood: the pagan revival and white separatism. Duke UP. ISBN 978-0-8223-3071-4. http://books.google.com/books?id=FIwwWSSL5JIC. Retrieved 30 January 2012.
