I am a Heathen (I prefer that term to Ásatrú, mainly because of the many ways American Heathens can unintentionally – and with the best of intentions – do violence to Old Icelandic, the language of my ancestors). I am also a progressive liberal.

Like any definition, these are problematic (please keep this proviso in mind as I tread out onto thin ice). What, exactly, do we mean by “Heathen” and what does “liberal” mean? What is a “progressive”? It should be obvious that we will not find 100% agreement across the spectrum of religion or politics on any of these terms.

So what is a Heathen? Interesting question. And one I get asked a lot. I follow the customs and traditions of my pre-Christian Norse ancestors. That’s the easiest way to say it. I therefore honor the gods of my ancestors and the spirits of hearth and nature. I am, therefore, a polytheist. My gods are not archetypes or forces of nature, but individuals.

Heathens tend to be a surly, serious bunch. We spend a lot of time worrying over how we’re going to go about bringing our religion back to life, asking “which approach is best?” In this, we’re probably no different than a lot of modern Pagan religions.

In my opinion strict reconstructionism has its problems. Religion is alive, dynamic, and changing.  But if you bring Heathenism back, from when and where do you bring it? The Migration Era? The Viking Age? Some other period? From Denmark, Norway, Gemany, Sweden? From Anglo-Saxon England?

You can’t take a slice of the American West and say, “this is what life was like for the Native Americans” because it won’t be true. The result of such a sampling would be the same for any Pagan peoples in the ancient world. What gets transplanted into the present then is a static thing, an artificial representation of what Paganism used to be, at one specific time and place.

So my approach is one of revival, of bringing back ancient customs and traditions but making them relevant to the modern world. It’s not the seventh century anymore; it is the twenty-first. Some things just aren’t relevant to the modern world.

We cannot depend entirely upon scholarship for our efforts because scholarship is constantly changing our view of the past and its practices. If we depend entirely upon scholarship we’ll have a new religion every time a new discovery is made.

And I can’t go the way of embracing UPGs with wild abandon because then I feel as though I’m not reviving an ancient religion but inventing a new one. That’s not to say UPGs must be dismissed entirely, in my viewpoint. So much has been lost, so much we will never know (particularly for us Heathens), that if we did not proceed through trial and error, finding new ways to do old things, we would have a very incomplete religion.

And I recognize that syncretism is, and has always been, present. In every religion. Always. We must be careful in our reconstructions and revivals to avoid, in our haste to find some form of “purity” for our respective traditions, that we do not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

The key for me is that what is new must make sense in light of what is old. They must mesh. I look for some continuity; it must be something that at least could have been true. In other words, as just one example, I won’t mix modern occult practices with my religion. I cannot imagine such a thing as a Gardnerian Heathen.

So that’s my approach to religion.

As for politics, I grew up in a very conservative household. My father yearned for the “good old days” (by that he meant the Victorian Era, when everything was kept in the closet) while my mother was, while conservative politically, a little more moderate religiously. I grew up unquestioning; I did not challenge the assumptions my parents fed me. Though I was born in 1957 and was 12 at the height of Hippie-dom, the Counter-Culture did not reach into my home, a bastion of the status-quo.

It was only as I grew into my teens and came into growing awareness of the wider world that I began to question these assumptions. The result was that in 1979, questioning the validity of the one vs. many model of religion, I became a polytheist. I also became more liberal in my views as many of the Judeo-Christian-based assumptions fell away. My parents would not recognize me now: I work for change, for social justice, for winning equal rights for all, and conservatism is, and has always been, about the status quo.

The irony in all this is that ancient Pagans were conservative folk. We’re speaking after all of the “traditional cults” as they were termed in the Roman world. The approach was no different in Heathen cultures. Tradition. Mos Maiorum: the customs and traditions of my ancestors. The ancients appealed to tradition, but they were well aware that customs and traditions evolved. The reality of tradition then fell somewhat short of the ideal. But no one was championing a revolution in thought; it was a slow evolution.

As a progressive liberal I favor a more moderate approach. I am not and can never be a member of the extreme left (though I recognize that perception plays a role and that conservatives might see things differently). But when I say moderate I mean a moderate within the confines (if that term can be used) of progressivism.

I do not like extremism, whether from the left or the right; I am not comfortable with it. Fanatics of any sort do not appeal to me. I can admire their passion on an intellectual level but I cannot share in them because zealotry means limiting your viewpoint: closing off most of reality to your consideration. I can’t do that.

There is room in Paganism for different approaches. There should be. Paganism is diverse. It always has been and I suppose (and hope) it always will be. Egyptologist Jan Assmann speaks of polytheism as a means of translation between cultures, breaking down and transcending barriers, rather than erecting them. Different groups of Pagans could always identify with each other’s gods and goddesses. Historian Ramsay MacMullen calls ancient Paganism a ““spongy mass of tolerance and tradition,” and this applies as much today as it did 2000+ years ago.

It is something we should be proud of, just as we should be proud of Paganism’s ability to host differing political views. We’re different, but we’re not opposed, and we’re all in this together, because Paganism is all about diversity and tolerance. Each ethnic group in the ancient world had its own gods and goddesses, and their religion was true religion – true for them because it worked for them. When we all have true religions, there is no need to fight over them.

Paganism is a beautiful thing. I love my gods, and I love my religion. And I love my fellow Pagans even when I disagree with them.

I look forward to exchanging and sharing viewpoints of hot button political issues with my fellow bloggers, and thankful for the opportunity to make people stop and think, to challenge their assumptions, and to have a few of my own challenged as well.