21 Nov 2005
Economic Pressure

There's always been a huge discussion in the Heathen community (and among scholars of the North as well) as to why heathenry lost out to Christianity a thousand years ago. One of the stock answers trotted out whenever this debate arises is that of "economic pressure".

The Icelanders faced a historic dilemma is 1000 CE - convert and continue trade with Norway, or remain True and be isolated from Christian Europe. Thorgeir the Lawspeaker, for good or ill, chose the former route, ultimately leading to the end of the Icelandic Commonwealth, but maintaining contact with the ancestral homelands. I'm sure he felt it to be a "lose-lose" proposition, and simply did the best he could under the circumstances.

And those pressures have not gone away. Better than half my delivery customers are very pious Christians, and, while I don't make a big production number out of my heathenry, I'm pretty much all over the web with it, and anybody with a browser and Google search can (and does) run across it. And it's cost me some business, I'm sure.

I've been invited to supply various Christian buying clubs and co-ops - if I'll certify that I'm a "Christian business". None of my customers have ever explicitly proselytized me, but there have been many subtle hints. Some folks just assume that I'm a Christian, usually by observing the farms motto of 'Honoring Our Ancestors, Honoring Our Land' and believing that I'm into their brand of "Old Time Religion" as well. And in a sense, I am - it's just really old time religion. I've been told by a customer that she's knows I'm a Christian, because she can hear the Lord in my voice. I've not had the heart to tell her that Freyr is Lord, and Freyja is Lady, mostly for fear of losing an order for a pint of ice cream and a quart of milk a week. Maybe she wouldn't do that, but I don't know.

And that's the point of economic pressure, really. You don't know, anymore than Thorgeir knew, how it's all going to work out in the end. The carrots are dangled, but you know the sticks are laying in wait. You just don't know if you can really reach the hanging veggies, or if the bats are gonna whack your ass, until you try moving forward or back - and by then, it's too late to change direction, and you're had.

The more things change, the more they remain the same.

00:00 /Asatru | 0 comments | permanent link