Canada

Heathen candidate Robert Rudachyk gears up for April election

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SASKATCHEWAN – Liberal Party candidate and long time member of Canada’s Heathen community, Robert Rudachyk officially kicks off his campaign today in his bid to represent Saskatoon-Riverdale as a Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA). This is a seat in the Province of Saskatchewan and is similar to holding office at the state level in the U.S.

In 2014, Mr. Rudachyk sought the nomination to become the Liberal Party of Canada‘s candidate for the federal riding of Saskatoon West, a federal level position. However, he wasn’t nominated by his party. For this current election, Rudachyk has not only received nomination by his party, but he also feels that he has an excellent shot at winning the election. This would make Rudachyk the first openly elected Heathen in Canada.

Culture

Column: Lauren Pond’s “American Heathens”

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Lauren Pond’s photography had me the first time I saw the Spam. In a photoessay about Heathens, one would expect to find pictures of things like wooden statuettes, leather belts, and offering bowls – the kinds of items that have an intrinsic ritual significance, which seem to automatically activate the area of the brain designated for religion. But one does not expect to find the blue cans of meat nestled in right next to these icons. Of all the things I have read about Valgard Murray, the controversial (to say the least) leader of Asatru Alliance and owner of the items in the photograph, the depths of his predilection for Spam were not among them. But Lauren Pond’s pictures focus on exactly these sorts of details – the human quirks of religious cultures that are often drowned in the seas of theology and ritual.

News

Religious Accommodations for Beards in Prison

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KULPMONT, Penn — An on-again, off-again inmate in Pennsylvania’s correctional system has filed a federal lawsuit alleging his religious beliefs were violated when he was required to shave his beard. Randy Elliot, Jr., said in court papers that the incident occurred June 13 of this year, a month and a half before he was released. He was given a choice between shaving his beard, which, according to the filed papers, is “against the Viking way” or being placed on restrictive housing status. Elliot, who is seeking an injunction against such actions and monetary damages, has since been returned to prison due to parole violations. Beards as a religious issue are nothing new in the United States, in or out of the prison system.

Paganism

Column: God as a Small Thing

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The figure stands, unsteady and misshapen, only a few centimeters tall. It lacks its left arm, and its bronze form has become so weathered that I cannot easily read its face; the head rises to a point like an arrowhead, and two curving lines beneath the nose suggest a mustache. Its right eye is just a slit in the metal; a protruding oval marks the wide left eye. A nearby sign lists the figure’s provenance: Lindby, Skåne, Sweden, created sometime during the Iron Age – there’s no more definite date given than that. Because the figure is missing an eye, it is usually interpreted as the god Odin.

News

Column: Ásatrúarfélagið threatened with vandalism over LGBTQ support

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Ásatrúarfélagið, the Icelandic Ásatrú organization, has attracted widespread international attention since announcing plans to build a temple in downtown Reykajavík last February. Although much of that attention has been positive, it was reported earlier this week by the Icelandic news service Vísir that Ásatrúarfélagið had received hate mail and threats of vandalism from foreign Pagans. These threats have, in turn, forced Ásatrúarfélagið to consider the security of its temple and the relationship of its organization to the rest of the world. According to the alsherjargoði, or high priest, of Ásatrúarfélagið, Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson, the society began to receive large amounts of hate-mail in February, just after a widely-circulated article about the temple was published in Iceland Magazine. Although the society has always attracted the occasional letter of this sort throughout its four-decade history, this surge of messages was unprecedented.