In defence of Holy England

The Anglo Saxon English people are a distinct nation, bound together by common origins, culture, history and all those things that a shared sense of belonging entails. We are the Angelcynn, the indigenous people of England, and we assert our right to exist and to celebrate this identity. The English Folk Church aims to help this by reconnecting people back to our pre-Christian folk religion. But it seeks to achieve this within a context of an indigenous form of Folk Christianity that draws from both our Christian and pre-Christian traditions. A folk religion is a set of beliefs and practices that are deeply rooted in the culture and identity of a particular people. These often go way back to the dawn of civilisation and the beginnings of social organisation. The bonds between a people and their folk traditions are powerful and help define them. These traditions often survive the advent of universalistic religions, such as Christianity. The time has come for the indigenous people of England to connect back to our ancient folk religion, one that celebrates life, beauty and honour. Many people are doing this through Odinism, Asatru and Heathenry. But the teachings of Christ have brought many benefits to our people, corrected some of the less attractive aspects of the old religion and brought a genuine insight into the nature of God that we should not discard. This is not the fundamentalist or literalist view of Christianity. Nor is it the power politics of institutional organisations that call themselves ‘Church’. The EFC is seeking to create a blend of our old folk religions and a form of folk Christianity that produces something different. In some ways, it is producing a folk faith that might have emerged had our ancestor’s old heathen religion been allowed to develop with Christian insights rather than been persecuted out of existence. The English Folk Church also aims to be a bridge between Heathenry, Odinism and Christianity. It will encourage Heathens to recognise the positive things about Christianity and Christians to relate more to their folk culture and the beliefs of their ancestors. The Anglo Saxon English people should not be divided by religion but rather strengthened and unified by it. Today, many peoples around the world are re-discovering their ancestral folk traditions. Officially, the Church has always opposed paganism and tried to suppress the old religion of our ancestors. Even in Anglo Saxon times it was illegal to carry out even simple and apparently harmless rituals, such as votive offerings around wells. Punishments could be severe. But the reality is that ‘official’ Christianity never really penetrated that deeply into the general population – at least not until much later in our history. Some of our folk traditions, such as Yuletide, were absorbed into Christianity right from the beginning. Even some traditions that were initially suppressed, such as well dressing or honouring ancestors, came to be accepted in time. The Church is now far more positive about encouraging some native peoples, such as the First Nations peoples of Canada, to reconnect with elements of their native traditions and create an indigenous form of folk Christianity. If this is alright for the native peoples of North America, Australasia and so on – then it is alright for us Anglo Saxons. The EFC will try to foster a strong sense of Anglo Saxon community, based around the family and clan group. It will offer practical ways of strengthening these such as prayers, blessings and short ceremonies that can be performed in the home and in small family gatherings. It will promote the idea of small churches dedicated to family groups and encourage religious ceremonies to be carried out as part of clan get-togethers. In this way, it is hoped that it will provide a spiritual underpinning for the Anglo Saxon community to mix amongst itself, to marry within the extended community and to raise strong families within the security of the wider folk group. This is what is meant by being folkish. A folk religion is an ethnic religion. It is the means by which one particular group of people relate to and understand the divine forces around them. As an ethnic religion, it follows that a particular folk faith is appropriate to a particular group of people. This is why many peoples around the world are exploring their own versions of Folk Christianity; they are trying to reconnect with their own identity and past. As such, we celebrate and seek to preserve our native Anglo Saxon English identity. This does not imply negative feelings towards other peoples and faiths. We strongly advocate peaceful co-existence between the different peoples and faiths of the world, each respecting the others right to exist.

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