Let’s get something straight…
FOLKISH
(adjective) folk•ish
“Characteristic of or based on a traditional culture, or the common people.”
A lot of people don’t know what this word actually means. Most non-Abrahamic religions are, by definition, folkish, shaped over the centuries by the cultures who founded them and passed them down. And, every European pagan religion involves ancestor worship, binding the faith to its folk. Every culture has an ethnic religion of its own.
As for the second part, paganism is folkish in the sense that it was the religion of the common people; in many cases, Christianity initially gained traction among the elite, and therefore, in urban centres. The very word pagan comes from Latin “paganus”; rustic. Heathen (ON: heiðinn, and OE: hǣþen) means “heath dweller”, and by extension, uncivilized, undeveloped. By the view of the ancient Christians, they were the “woke” ones, and the pagans were the flyover rural rednecks who had yet to see the correct way. Considering the aspect of nature worship in European pagan religions, it’s almost fitting.
That said, I do not think it necessary to bar non-Germanic people from practicing Germanic paganism if they’re serious about it.
Regardless of the fact that many of us today are of mixed ancestry, Norse paganism has become quite prominent in mainstream media, and may serve as someone’s first introduction to an ancestral religion, and I’ve often seen people start off as a Norse pagan, dig deeper into their own ancestry, and eventually learn about their own ancestral faith, for example, Celtic and Slavic paganism.
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FOLKISH
(adjective) folk•ish
“Characteristic of or based on a traditional culture, or the common people.”
A lot of people don’t know what this word actually means. Most non-Abrahamic religions are, by definition, folkish, shaped over the centuries by the cultures who founded them and passed them down. And, every European pagan religion involves ancestor worship, binding the faith to its folk. Every culture has an ethnic religion of its own.
As for the second part, paganism is folkish in the sense that it was the religion of the common people; in many cases, Christianity initially gained traction among the elite, and therefore, in urban centres. The very word pagan comes from Latin “paganus”; rustic. Heathen (ON: heiðinn, and OE: hǣþen) means “heath dweller”, and by extension, uncivilized, undeveloped. By the view of the ancient Christians, they were the “woke” ones, and the pagans were the flyover rural rednecks who had yet to see the correct way. Considering the aspect of nature worship in European pagan religions, it’s almost fitting.
That said, I do not think it necessary to bar non-Germanic people from practicing Germanic paganism if they’re serious about it.
Regardless of the fact that many of us today are of mixed ancestry, Norse paganism has become quite prominent in mainstream media, and may serve as someone’s first introduction to an ancestral religion, and I’ve often seen people start off as a Norse pagan, dig deeper into their own ancestry, and eventually learn about their own ancestral faith, for example, Celtic and Slavic paganism.
ᛟ