Asatru Folk Assembly - Murdock and the Media

00:00:00.000 Hello. I wanted to reach out and talk to you guys this afternoon for just a minute here

00:00:11.940 in the hopes of clearing up some, perhaps some confusion, and giving our side of the

00:00:20.960 ongoing media manufactured controversy about Baldershoff and Murdoch, Minnesota.

00:00:27.140 so those of you that may not know are about the middle of middle of last year we purchased a

00:00:39.600 beautiful church in murdoch minnesota a nice very small town in in southern minnesota and we

00:00:47.040 with the intention of uh establishing a hof to balder there and we've been working hard to

00:00:54.840 remodel and upgrade the facility and make it nice and something worthy of balder and

00:01:01.800 in doing so we discovered that we needed to get a temporary um conditional use permit

00:01:10.820 for a zoning variance because of where this this building is and because the previous

00:01:16.680 owners had used it as a residence so we decided to you know go through the appropriate channels to

00:01:24.460 to do that and um media got wind of it and as they do they continue to make a a sensational

00:01:36.060 story about it and to push a narrative and push push a headline um if you guys are aware of it

00:01:44.260 uh you may have seen it you know all across the internet or on twitter or wherever but

00:01:48.780 articles that are titled with things trying to generate fear, things trying to generate

00:01:55.040 controversy where there's not. And in doing so, there's been quite a bit of confusion that we've

00:02:01.760 received as response to it. So one thing, first and foremost, we've had a lot of people message

00:02:09.640 us to tell us about Jesus, to inform us that Jesus wasn't white, to accuse us of perverting the

00:02:15.860 Gospels. It's unfortunate that the media, in doing its journalism, didn't tell people very

00:02:25.180 clearly that we're not a Christian congregation. We're also true. We worship the Isir. We worship

00:02:32.580 Odin, Thor, and Balder. So that's a big point of confusion that I think people don't understand

00:02:41.560 because the headlines are racist church moves into town

00:02:46.320 instead of, you know, new Alcetruhof in town

00:02:50.000 or something, you know, of that nature.

00:02:53.820 And that's really unfortunate.

00:02:55.820 And it's meant that way to draw attention.

00:02:58.680 And, you know, it's a much sexier headline

00:03:00.600 than, you know, beautiful new Alcetru temple in town.

00:03:05.780 We wish we got that kind of coverage,

00:03:07.720 but I'm not, I don't expect that.

00:03:11.560 I do expect fairness, though.

00:03:15.800 In this media flurry, we've had one of the reporters admit that they, I'm trying to think

00:03:24.160 of how she put it, but she said she had gotten a lot of people stirred up about this.

00:03:30.260 In her saying that, that implies that the town wasn't stirred up about it.

00:03:35.600 There hadn't been a problem until the media created a problem.

00:03:38.920 So, long story short, the council, in keeping with the law and keeping with fairness, granted

00:03:46.140 us our conditional use permit, and we're moving forward, and we're very proud to be in Murdoch.

00:03:52.520 We're very proud to have this amazing Hoff dedicated to Balder, but I wanted to dispel

00:03:59.580 some things.

00:04:00.880 In doing this, the media has created a lot of fear, or at least they say there's a lot

00:04:05.040 of fear in town.

00:04:06.320 I hope that's not the case. They have targeted the Hispanic community in town, which looking at the, you know, looking at the records that I can see is, you know, 17 people or so.

00:04:18.940 And they've targeted those people and tried to make those people very afraid. And they say they've been successful in having those people be afraid.

00:04:26.700 I want to address any members of the Hispanic community of Murdoch. I am so sorry that the media got you guys scared.

00:04:33.780 I promise you, you have nothing to fear from the Astro Folk Assembly.

00:04:38.780 We mean nobody any harm.

00:04:40.940 The only thing we've wanted to do was to worship our gods, celebrate our folk in this beautiful building that we've acquired in your community, and hopefully be very, very good neighbors.

00:04:52.240 And I believe that'll be the case once the media leaves it alone.

00:04:55.120 and for that matter, I'd encourage anyone in Murdoch who has any concerns or any fears that

00:05:04.280 have been established to come and talk to us. Stop by. We'd be very happy to speak to you guys,

00:05:11.400 very happy to get to know you, very happy to let you get to know us. It's our sincere

00:05:15.820 intention to be good neighbors and a good part of the Murdoch community.

00:05:19.720 um media's big thing is claiming that we are we are a hate group that we are some kind of

00:05:27.280 extremists that we're some kind of white supremacists and they base this in large part

00:05:32.700 on a uh an article by the southern poverty law center um that is a despicable organization 0.91

00:05:40.060 that is perpetuated on lies and on fear-mongering and on racism towards white people.

00:05:49.380 And it's very unfortunate.

00:05:51.420 Their article, if you'll notice, if anybody takes a chance to read,

00:05:55.300 doesn't claim that they found us saying anything hateful, doing anything hateful.

00:06:02.500 Absolutely no hate has ever come from the Ask True Folk Assembly in words or in deed.

00:06:08.340 and barring them being able to find that out, they've decided that they know what we're really

00:06:14.400 about. And so they labeled us as a neo-Volkish hate group on their site. Those that may not know,

00:06:20.980 the SPLC is not a government agency. It's a private group of individuals that is a professional

00:06:29.340 organization of name callers. And they call folks' names and say mean things about them,

00:06:35.760 unchallenged. And unfortunately, a lot of people take that as a statement of fact.

00:06:41.300 And that's what folks have done in this case, and it's very sad. But I encourage you guys,

00:06:46.640 look for yourself, check out our website, www.runestone.org. I don't imagine that everyone

00:06:56.120 will agree with us or that everyone will be our friends, but at the very least, you won't find

00:07:02.680 anything on there hateful. You certainly won't find anything scary. And yeah, I encourage you

00:07:09.000 guys to give us a fair shot over there. We are, as I've said, so the media, the media continues

00:07:18.620 to make stories to try to drum up fear in the community. But our experience in Murdoch has

00:07:23.740 been very different. Been very different indeed. We've had a lot of members of the community stop

00:07:30.800 by and wish us well give us a kind word um we've had a lot of waves we've had people apologize for

00:07:37.760 the way their community's been portrayed and the way they're uh that folks in the name of their

00:07:43.280 community have treated us we've had a really good interaction so far and i'm i'm really happy about

00:07:48.560 that and i know that will continue in the future um as it stands we have a have a beautiful hofta

00:07:56.800 Balder and we're part of the community and we're proud to be there. We appreciate everyone who's

00:08:02.140 reached out. We appreciate everyone who's reached out in response to the articles supporting what

00:08:07.780 we're doing. I think it's worth noting that the forces of tolerance and the people accusing us

00:08:17.240 of being hateful, those people have sent us countless death threats. Those people have

00:08:24.320 addressed us in the most vile language, wishing the most vile things to happen to us. The way that

00:08:31.380 the other team has treated us, there's no doubt that anyone fairly would consider it quite hateful.

00:08:41.500 I'd also like to point out that as a supposed hate group, Astro Folk Assembly has never sought

00:08:47.280 to prevent any group of people from practicing their faith however they chose. The AFA has

00:08:53.640 certainly never sought to run any group of people out of a town or make them feel unwelcome.

00:09:01.880 The AFA has never engaged in harassment of other people who disagreed with us. We've never

00:09:08.920 threatened people who disagree with us. We've focused exclusively on building us

00:09:15.560 and celebrating what we're doing and leaving everyone else alone. It would be nice if folks

00:09:21.800 have extended that same courtesy to us. Hopefully one day folks will. In the meantime, we're thankful

00:09:29.300 that we've got this beautiful facility. We're thankful for the people who've shown support.

00:09:33.580 And I just wanted to take a minute this afternoon to share that with you guys and clear up any

00:09:39.360 confusions. Also, folks think that we have a permit to have an all-white church. That's not

00:09:45.280 the case. We have a conditional use permit to operate one facility in one town as a house of

00:09:54.740 worship. The permission to practice our beliefs as we see fit is inherent in human condition and

00:10:02.660 was affirmed by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. So thank you

00:10:08.440 guys for giving this a listen. Wish you guys the best. Hail the gods, hail the folk, hail the AFA.

Asatru Folk Assembly - January 15, 2021

Murdock and the Media

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript