Did You Know Minnesota is Home to a Racist Whites-Only Church?

I'm not sure how I missed this story, but in the craziness that was 2020, I'm sure a lot of people did, but did you know Minnesota is now home to a whites-only church that many organizations call a hate group?

In December 2020, the City of Murdock, a little town of about 300 people located about an hour southwest of St. Cloud, gave permission to the Asatru Folk Assembly or AFA to use an old Lutheran church for as a gathering place for its members in the Midwest.

The AFA also has two other churches across the country, one in Linden, North Carolina, and in Brownsville, California. The Asatru Folk Assembly was founded in 1994 and is considered a pagan or heathen religion that requires its members have northern European heritage, that means whites-only.

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The organizations that have banned or come out against the Asatru Folk Assembly make it clear that their intentions are not what they claim to be, as they say that they are nothing more than a religion.

If you have any doubts of their intentions, just read this quote from their 'Statement of Ethics' on their website, "We want our children to grow up to be mothers and fathers to white children of their own. We believe that those activities and behaviors supportive of the white family should be encouraged while those activities and behaviors destructive of the white family are to be discouraged."

The AFA was banned from Facebook in 2017 for hate speech, the Anti-Defamation League says the AFA is an extremist group, and the Southern Poverty Law Center added the AFA to their list of hate groups in 2018. Despite all this, the Murdock City Council gave these racists permission to set up in their town in 2020.

Even other Pagan and Heathen religions have banned together to denounce the AFA and the hate that they are spreading. If you want to learn more about this, watch this great short documentary from the Guardian, they send a Black reporter to visit the church and meet with some members.