Syncretizing Christianity & Asatru

[KveldulfR]

This will undoubtedly be a controversial post, but bear with me and please read the entire post. This is about all the aspects of both Religions, even the little things. Can anyone come up with things that can compliment or things that can work together? There will be naysayers for certain and I welcome that. I don't even know how I feel about this myself.

Consider Voodoo/ Hoodoo and Santeria. Both have successfully combined Christianity with their native religions. Why are we unable to do so?

J.R.R. Tolkien used Norse Mythology to write his famous Lord of the Rings Trilogy and, yet, it is ultimately written by a Christian with heavy Christian undertones, but with magic and Runes and Dwarves, Elves, etc...

Also, it need not be Christianity in the strictest sense, that is to say Fundamentalist. Even a Gnostic approach could be considered. Any and all ideas are welcomed.

Thanks in advance,

-Kveldulf "Rob Gau" Rolfsson

[Van Wellenkamp]

There are already many Germanic undertones incorporated into Western Christianity. I feel it has already started.

[KveldulfR]

Please elaborate.

[Thorwald]

I'm sorry, but honoring the gods of your blood kin is rather incompatible with honoring some crucified Jew as a god. Anyone who says differently is in denial, or trying to sell you a line.


Now, my family has nominal ties to Lutheranism, and I go there for weddings and funerals, even the occasional church dinner. But it's me being polite and social. I don't actually have anything to do religiously with the Jewish god and his alleged son. To do so would be a betrayal of the faith of my ancestors.

(PS, I didn't mean to "thank" you for your post. I clicked on the wrong damn button when I was trying to reply. I wish there was a way to "unthank" someone, just as facebook has an option to "unlike" a post).

[Kauz R. Waldher]

Well, christians view everything as heresy. If it isn't orthodoxy, it's heresy. Just like, the good old literal interpretation. They are a mess and they will never bend and flex for us. It's not us that is the problem. There's 400 different forms of the same religion .. and they all think that they're the right ones. Geezus ... what a wreck they are.

[svartleby]

Sorry but given how christian influenced some of the sources we have to work with are when trying to recreate the faith and worldview our ancestors, adding anything else would probably tip things to a point where what you're doing is more like heathen influenced Christianity than the synthesis you seem to want.

Now for the upg part: I don't think our gods like being thrown together with unrelated deities. Especially the Christian god. If we know anything about them from the lore it is that they have turned grudges into an art form and I just couldn't imagine them not holding one for the invading deity that subjugated their people.

[velvet]

Consider Voodoo/ Hoodoo and Santeria. Both have successfully combined Christianity with their native religions. Why are we unable to do so?

We did. What we consider "christianity" in the west is fundamentally different from what other people of different cultural background consider christianity to be.

This is because christianity does not have a cultural tradition, and it is to say that christianity also has neither the ability nor even the will to build one. Christianity is "universal", it has no use whatsoever for culture and the differences in outlook onto the world which result from that.

Keeping that in mind, the goal must be to seperate Asatru again from the christian corruption thereof and become itself again, before even the last traces of our culture vanish in this destructive, universal everyone is equal egalitarian dystopia.

Culture is ethnic, ethic is ethnic, customs and traditions are ethnic. A "universal" religion such as christianity that promotes that everyone can be christian has no use for ethnic, cultural differences and MUST by necessity aim to destroy ("equalise") them. Paradoxically, christianity needs this cultural base to first establish itself upon (hence the different shades of christianity), but itself remains void and it remains to be a destructive force to the culture and people, because it twists and perverts everything.

Why would a heathen even want to open the door to christianity? That what he shed off with much effort in the first place. What does christianity offer a heathen anyway? "Salvation"? From sins he never committed or that he doesnt consider sins in the first place. An "afterlife"? An overemphasised afterlife that essentially denies life on earth and even denies all noble virtues of life, as required condition to enter "Israel" (christians may know this concept as "heaven" or "paradise"). A pervert simplicissimus of dualism between reward and punishment for servitude, or lack thereof. Happiness and lust of and for life stained with sin, bad luck stained with sin, with punishment by god for disservitude, weakness and suffering raised to moral commandments. Christianity is a religion for dreamers, for a dying civilisation, not for a people that has his greatest time still before it.

That we are still here, as a people, is our Germanic stubbornness, or disability to swallow the Jewish religion fully, and luckily, the emptiness of christianity culturewise, and likewise luckily, its lack of power. The devastating effects of christianity on our people (genetically) and culture when it had power should be a hortative example never to allow it again to have any power or influence whatsoever.

[Alfadur]

Christianity, being an universalist and monotheistic faith, can't really be syncretized with a polytheistic heathen religion like that of our Norse ancestors (which wasn't called "Asatru", by the way, since that's the Christian label for it. Neither was it called "Odinism", which implies monotheistic worship. As far as we know, the religion just called "the customs" by those who held to it, so I suppose "Forn Seidr" is our best term for it.) What happened in Europe was that Christianity was grafted onto the pagan rites and traditions that already existed. Not so much blending, but rather a canvas being painted - in this case, a new religion forcing itself onto societies that were vulnerable and didn't truly have the concept of a monotheistic god before. However, the old values of those societies still existed underneath, and the people did not change.

We did. What we consider "christianity" in the west is fundamentally different from what other people of different cultural background consider christianity to be.

Indeed. All people construct their image of the universe out of the self, and so it's obvious that Christianity looks different in other cultures. The Lutheran Church, with its clean morals and emphasis on work ethic, is radically different from West African Christianity which is half-voodoo and has Jesus portrayed as a negro with AIDS. In other words, religions are affected and colored by the peoples that practice them, even though the religion's ethos may be unchanged.

Culture is ethnic, ethic is ethnic, customs and traditions are ethnic.

Indeed, and the reason why Norse paganism and Christianity can't be syncretized is mainly ethnic. These religions were created by two ethnic groups that were too different in their mental patterns, and subsequently in their belief systems.

Christianity is from the same source as Judaism and Islam (although it has been "Europeanized" later on). It was created by a Semitic desert people, to suit their spiritual needs. As in all monotheistic religions, it's requires all believers to submit completely to the will of the one God. It is dogmatic, has a fixed moral code, and holds that "this is the one absolute truth, and no one must ever deviate from it." It cannot accept other religions.

The Norse pagan customs were derived from an Indo-European (or, to use the un-PC word, Aryan) religious system. It was a sublime religion with a pantheon full of gods and goddesses, and suited to the values of those who conceived it. It can be syncretized with aspects from other polytheistic religions of an Indo-European origin, which is what happened in the Roman Empire. They syncretized Greek gods with Roman ones, and later Celtic and Germanic gods as well (equating the white god Baldr to Apollo, for instance). However, Judaism was the one religion that pagan Rome couldn't tolerate, because of its fundamentally intolerant nature.

To make a long story short: Judaism/Islam/Christianity cannot be syncretized in the normal sense with the polytheistic Norse customs, precisely because Semitic monotheism does not work that way.

[Nachtengel]

Christianity is an alien religion that brought alien elements and it didn't happen for our native religions to adopt some of its teachings but viceversa. It's a form of multiculturalism, because Christianity is a religion for Semites with core Semitic figures and values. Some of the universalist Christian teachings like tolerance, loving your enemy, turning the other cheek, and highly contradictory with Germanic values and have partially lead to our death as a people.

[Bearkinder]

Another problem is that the religions of the sons of Abraham demand their adherents kneel and submit to slavery -- the people as a whole to their god, and as individuals to other men.

Whereas the Germanic religion (and I have to include the Celtic religion in this, as Celtic society seems to have come from Germanic culture anyway) is based on a warrior ethic -- men are expected to stand, not kneel. Be self-reliant, not be slaves subject to just about anyone's will but their own. When someone steals from you, assaults you and threatens your life, you go take heads, not bend over and turn the other (butt) cheek and let them have more.

How can they be "syncretized"?