When the church doors open, only white people will be permitted inside.
What We Know:
- This is the message the Asatru Folk Assembly in Murdock, Minnesota, is sending after being awarded a provisional use permit to open a church there and exercise its pre-Christian religion that began in northern Europe.
- Despite a council vote formally approving the permit this month, residents are pushing back toward the decision. Opponents have gathered about 50,000 signatures on an online request to stop the all-white church from making its home in the operating town of 280 people.
- “I think they thought they could fly under the radar in a small town like this, but we’d like to keep the pressure on them,” mentioned Peter Kennedy, a longtime Murdock resident. “Racism is not welcome here.”
- The Southern Poverty Law Center defines Asatru Folk Assembly as a “neo-Volkisch hate group” that express “their bigotry in baseless claims of bloodlines grounding the superiority of one’s white identity.” Many residents call them a white supremacist or white separatist group, but church members refuse it.
“We’re not. It’s just simply not true,” said Allen Turnage, a folk assembly board member. “Just because we respect our own culture, that doesn’t mean we are denigrating someone else’s.”
- Based in Brownsville, California, the group states teachings and membership are for those of strictly European bloodlines.
- The church was looking for a new church in the eastern North Dakota area when they came across Murdock. It’s not clear how many members they have worldwide or how many people will visit the new church.
“We do not need salvation. All we need is freedom to face our destiny with courage and honor,” the group wrote on its website about their beliefs. “We honor the Gods under the names given to them by our Germanic/Norse ancestors.”
- According to the website, their ancestors were “Angels and Saxons, Lombards and Heruli, Goths and Vikings, and, as sons and daughters of these people, they are united by ties of blood and culture undimmed by centuries.”
- Murdock council members expressed they do not support the church but were legally forced to pass the permit, which they did in a 3-1 decision. “Our attorney highly advised us to pass this permit for legal reasons to protect the First Amendment rights,” Mayor Craig Kavanagh said. “We knew that if this was going to be denied, we were going to have a legal battle on our hands that could be pretty expensive.”
The vote has attracted national attention and condemnation.
