Skylands Ásatrú Fellowship is a recognized 501(c)3 church based in northern and central New Jersey. We are an active heathen community that holds religious, cultural, educational, and social events. We are not simply an on-line group where people can post the latest meme or complain about this or that. Membership in our Fellowship means that you will take an active part in our gatherings and support our organization and its mission– namely to facilitate the practice of the Ásatrú religion and to assist our efforts to perform outreach to non-practitioners.
Ásatrú is a religion, but Skylands Ásatrú Fellowship is more than a church. We’re a Fellowship – where everyone is there for everyone else. Honor, family, courage, appreciating the simple joys of nature – these qualities and more are what define us as Ásatrúar and as members of Skylands Ásatrú Fellowship.
What do we believe?
When considering the belief structure of Skylands Ásatrú Fellowship, it is important to begin at the heart of the matter, the very center of our name itself –Ásatrú. While the term is more well-known today than it was in decades past, it is still fair to ask, “What is Ásatrú?” Asatru is a relatively modern Icelandic term describing an ancient faith. It is a compound of Ása meaning “of the Aesir Gods” and trú which is often translated as “faith.” Combined then, the term means “faith in the Aesir” or “faith in the Gods.” In his landmark volume, A Book of Troth, Edred Thorsson explains that the term trú is derived from the Proto-Indo-European term *deru that “gave rise to ‘troth,’ ‘truth,’ ‘trust,’ and ‘true.’ He explains that the terms faith and belief have different meanings and implications.
“The implications of ‘faith’ or ‘belief’ are different. Belief is the acceptance of an external authority that a given thing is true, and perhaps that some form of ‘salvation’ is dependent on this belief. Troth is based on experience. One trusts that the sun will come up tomorrow because this recurring phenomenon has been experienced in the past.” (A Book of Troth, 2.)
Therefore we might say that Ásatrú means “trusting in the Aesir” with an understanding that that trust is built upon personal experience. Today this term has become somewhat controversial in and of itself and many such groups have shifted to using other terms to describe their organizations and their religion. The most popular terms today tend to be “Heathen” or “Norse Pagan.” Other groups choose to use the term “Odinist” which has a long history as well.
Each term may be charged with having some meaning that outsiders (non-practitioners) or those who prefer one term to the other allege. These range from association with contemporary politics to inaccurate personal conceptions of each term’s meaning. I had one person tell me that they were an “Odinist” because they believed in the Gods but not the Land Wights, Elves, and other beings that Ásatrúars believe in. This was a unique and, I would suggest, a false view arrived at by an individual who was not a member of any specific kindred or organization and who had limited personal knowledge of Ásatrúars (and for that matter Odinists).
Likewise I have had people tell me that they practiced Vanatrú because they felt closely drawn to the Vanir Gods and that Ásatrúars don’t acknowledge them –but rather only the Aesir Gods. To set matters straight, Skylands Ásatrú Fellowship, and all Ásatrú organizations that I have had a pleasure to raise a horn with, fully accept and often hold rituals specifically dedicated to the most prominent of the Vanir Gods. The full acceptance of the Vanir as part of the greater pantheon of Gods generally identified as Aesir is agreed in antiquity. In fact, Snorri Sturluson who wrote The Prose Edda includes the names of Niord, Yngvi-Freyr and Freya in his lists of the Names of the Aesir and Asyniur in his Skaldskaparmal. In fact, it seems that while Ásatrúars fully accept the various Vanir Gods in their practice that it is the self-professed Vanatrúars who have a limited focus.
In general, I have found that the labels Ásatrú, Heathen, Odinist, and Norse Pagan are largely interchangeable. What differentiates them is not so much the terms themselves but rather the specific “personality” of the organization that selects such a name. Our Fellowship continues to embrace the term Ásatrú as it is quite distinctive and has gained recognition around the world. In fact, Ásatrú has been an officially recognized religion in Iceland since 1972. This is largely the result of the efforts of the Ásatrúarfelagidh (Ásatrú Fellowship) an Icelandic Ásatrú organization. While organizations calling themselves Ásatrú may only date back to the 1970s, the term itself was coined by the great Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) who used the word in his 1870 opera Olaf Trygvason. Still some could rightfully argue that the term itself has a modern origin, but it indicates something much older indeed.
If we consider the ancient pre-Christian religious practice of many of the people of Northern Europe (stretching from modern-day Ireland and Iceland and across to Russia) as well as the Germanic tribes that established settlements as far south as Portugal, Spain, and Italy, we find that no label or name was necessary for their “trust” in the Gods. Religion, culture and the day-to-day events that made up the mundane aspects of life (farming, hunting, etc.) were one. It is a modern development to differentiate the sacred from the mundane world. People did not choose their Gods or their faith, but rather were born into a family and a greater tribe that lived in a certain way –and that life included the element that we call “religion” in our fragmented view. What we consider today as “religion,” was simply one with other aspects of one’s life and life’s experience.
Today, with a wide and seemingly endless array of choices from everything from beer to religion, we find that we must apply a label –to convey meaning and to describe what we are talking about. Indeed, communities are no longer made up of like-thinkers where all members belong to the same church or faith. Some have come from faraway lands and brought their native faith with them while others have embraced the traditional Abrahamic religions, the exotic, the bizarre, and still others nothing at all. In such circumstances, we are forced to name and define what we do.
For Skylands Ásatrú Fellowship, we are still proud to call ourselves Ásatrú. For those who have yet to put it all together, Ásatrú was the pre-Christian faith of the ancient Germanic tribes (even though they would not have called it by that name). These were the legendary Goths, Ostrogoths, Visgoths, Vandals, Marcomanni, Alamanni, Franks, and Irminones among others. Ours was the faith of the Angles and the Saxons when they conquered England. It was the faith of the Vikings as they explored the world.
Today should you choose to practice Asatru, you will find that the belief system extends beyond the Gods and emphasizes also the bonds of family and tribe, of personal honor, and courage. It also emphasizes nature and what we may call the “spirits of the land.”
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