Main Beliefs

The EFC believes that our pre-Christian ancestors had a good perception and understanding of God. As such, it teaches that our ancient myths and stories are important sources of this understanding. It also teaches that far from being the devils that early Churchman called the old gods and goddesses, these are immensely important spiritual beings akin to angels assigned specifically to our folk group as tribal guardian angels or wardens as they were once called. It is noteworthy that the Anglo Saxon Church acknowledged their reality, but was at pains to fit them into an alien belief system and portray them as evil. The EFC believes that dishonouring our ancient gods as devils has been the greatest deceit the Church has forced on our folk. We do not deny the existence of malign spiritual entities such as demons; our ancient tradition tells us of these too. But to include our ancient gods and goddesses and the Ælfe with these is a travesty both to them and to us.

At the heart of all reality is God; eternal essence and uncreated energies. God’s eternal essence transcends the created cosmos and exists outside of time and space as we know it. But the divine uncreated energies are immanent in the created world, existing within and throughout all matter and reality as we know it.

God is pure spirit; eternal essence and uncreated energies, a single entity without division. And yet, the manifestation of the divine energies within our world as spirit and thought does take on the appearance of separate entities. This is a little like considering a human being. That person is a single entity – a single person. But that person’s body, mind and spirit may at times appear to be different and act independently. This is where we get the old saying ‘the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak’. Another analogy is where our heart (spirit) tells us one thing but our brain (mind) tells us something else. We are single beings, but there are different energies at work in this being that make us what we are. As an undivided part of God, the Christos and Logos existed before they were manifest in our world and they continue to exist today and speak to us still.

The English Folk Church also talks about the underlying nature of God, which is made up of attributes such as love, order and creativity. These are the principles by which creation has been brought into existence and by which it is ordered. The Church refers to God’s nature as Wyrd or Orlog, which literally means the primal law. It is the underlying nature of God which governs the cosmos. The way we interact with God’s nature affects the unfolding of creation, both positively and negatively. In this way, our past actions collectively and individually affect our present and what will unfold in the future. It is our spiritual and moral duty to align ourselves with God’s nature and act positively to help the evolving of creation. Our actions, as individuals or as societies, also have consequences and will affect the unfolding of our futures.

God is creating the cosmos or multiverse out of the void we call Ginnungagap through a process of intermingling two equal but opposite substances represented in our mythology as fire and ice. The primal energies behind these substances are known in mythology as Giants (Eotens or Ettins); Fire Giants of the land of Fire and Frost Giants of the land of Ice. The process of creation is on going, creating order out of chaos. But the process requires God’s constant active energies to keep it evolving forwards and prevent a reversion back to chaos. The process of creation is therefore incomplete; being a continual and evolving ‘coming into being’. Imperfection exists and is inherent within and throughout our world, though it is essentially good. As creation unfolds and evolves into wholeness in unity with God, so imperfection will cease.

This process of evolutionary creation is reflected in the eternal cycle of birth, death and rebirth that we see throughout the cosmos. It can be seen in the pattern of day following night, summer following winter, the agricultural cycle or our own life cycles. These patterns reflect God’s own creative energies and have been expressed mythologically as Sky Father impregnating Earth Mother to create the new life. It is also powerfully reflected in the Christian story of the nativity.

God has created a great many spirit beings that permeate the natural world around us. These are our folk gods and goddesses, the Ælfe (or Elfs) and the land and water wights. Although sometimes confused with angels in the popular mind, they are not angels as such as they have free will. All peoples share a common humanity through the universal God. But at the same time, all peoples have a unique relationship with their ancestral folk gods and goddesses who have shaped them physically, culturally and spiritually. Our folk gods and goddesses are assigned specifically to the native people of North Western Europe and our kin around the world. Similar beings are assigned to other peoples of the world.

God’s spirit resides within all created beings – more strongly within the folk gods and goddesses than us humans as they were the first created. It is through the Spirit that we are animated and connected to God and to our folk gods and goddesses. The ancient Greeks referred to God’s spirit as the Christos or ‘Spirit of Truth’.

Jesus of Nazareth was born into our world. He was a real human who was born to a real human mother. The EFC does not teach that a literal belief in the virgin birth is necessary to believe that God dwelt amongst us in Jesus. This is a matter of choice; two Gospels relate it, two do not. Neither does Paul refer to it. It may be literally true. Or it may be a powerful myth to emphasise that, in Jesus, the Spirit of God (the Christos) and the mind of God (the Logos) dwelt amongst us in human form. The EFC does not seek to define precisely how this occurred and it has been the subject of a great deal of essentially fruitless debate and speculation over the years. The important point is not how God was manifest in the person of Jesus, but that God was manifest in Him. The EFC believes that a great deal of myth has grown up around the historical Jesus. So much that it is no longer possible to discern historical fact from myth. But myth is not fiction. It is a story that tells of deep underlying truth. It is often through myth that we can better appreciate the underlying importance of things.

The EFC does not see Jesus as the Jewish Messiah prophesised in the Old Testament and anticipated by the Jews of his day. The Old Testament itself is mainly the story of the Israelite people and of little direct relevance to the English or Saxon Folk Christian. The title Christos is simply a reference to the fact that in Jesus, the spirit of God came amongst us. It is the spirit of God we revere rather than the human Jesus. Furthermore, Jesus challenged the religious authorities of His day as he saw them as corrupt and wrong minded.

The resurrection story is part of the birth, death, rebirth cycle that forms the basis of our pre-Christian folk religion. It tells us of how in God we will be raised out of death and be reborn into life. But it also tells of how we will be raised up - perfected and made whole with God and in God. Whilst the human Jesus died on the cross, his physical body was transformed and raised up into heaven, one with God.

The natural law of God (Orlog) is embodied in the Holy Runes. It is through the Runes that we come to a meaningful understanding both of ourselves and of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. This understanding, or Gnosis, leads us to a union with the Spirit of Truth (or Christos) so that we too become as one with Christ. It is this Gnosis that Woden searches for in Mythology and which He finds in the Runes.

The holy scriptures of the Christian era contain divine wisdom and inspiration, but should not be interpreted literally. The English Folk Church recognises the importance of the books and letters of the New Testament, the Apocrypha, the Gnostic Gospels and our ancient mythology as sources of inspiration. It also recognises the importance of a body of literature that draws from both Christian and Heathen inspiration; Anglo Saxon poems such as Dream of the Rood and the continental Saxon Gospel ‘The Heliand’. It gives particular weight to the reconstructed Gospel of the Lord by Marcion of Sinope because of its antiquity and to the Gospel of Thomas because it is a record of Christ’s sayings without the mythology. It also gives special weight to the Havamal and Voluspa as probably the two least unadulterated records of our ancestor’s ancient beliefs. No single text is considered to be absolute truth and the EFC does not promote a literalist or fundamentalist interpretation of scripture.

Humankind is made in the image of God. This image is not our earthly bodies we see and touch, but our spiritual selves that lies within us and is part of us. It is this spark of the divine energies (the Christos) that connects us to and seeks unity with God. Our folk gods, through the power of the Logos, breathed the Spirit of God into us. Upon death, the soul separates from the material body and is reborn and perfected through the grace of God to dwell eternally in heaven.

Humankind is not born into a state of original sin, but rather a state of imperfection reflecting the imperfection and incompleteness of creation as a whole. This condition is perfected through the teaching, healing and knowledge of the Christos that gently draws us closer to God. By leading positive lives we can move towards a higher level of spiritual evolution and perfection until we finally achieve wholeness in God. For most people, this process continues beyond our mortal, earthly lives.

The EFC does not accept the doctrine of atonement through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross for the sins of humankind. We are not inherently sinful and God did not need to die on the cross to redeem us from that sin. Neither is salvation or union with God achieved simply through faith that Christ is God or simply through carrying out good deeds. God came amongst us in the form of Jesus to teach us how to evolve spiritually so that we can achieve that goal. He came to gather us unto Himself as salvation is through Him. The crucifixion and resurrection stories are about earthly death and the promise of rebirth in God through Christ. We are invited to travel a journey of spiritual evolution towards wholeness in God. This is part of the unfolding and perfecting of creation. But God helps us on this journey and ultimately will ensure that we succeed. Eternal life is at the end of the day a gift of God – the doctrine of Divine Grace. The ‘blood of Christ’ we share in the holy Eucharist is God’s spirit or life force, freely offered to us to share in the divine energies.

The myth of the Holy Grael is a powerful part of English folklore. Legend holds that Jesus accompanied his great uncle, St Joseph of Arimathea, to the south west of modern day England as a young boy. The EFC believes that during this time He was instructed by Druids and that this ancient British religion – a close relation of ancient Germanic religion - formed the basis of His teachings and His altercations with the Jewish authorities of His day. This is because our ancient religions in many respects were more pure and true to the Word of God than the corrupted religion of the people He was born into. Later on, the cup that he used at the last supper – the cup that held the blood of Christ – was brought by St Joseph to Glastonbury where the first Christian Church outside of Jerusalem was established. The myth of the Holy Grael has strong links with our ancient myths of the cauldron of knowledge and the myth of the mead of inspiration. The search for knowledge that underlies these myths is the search for true Gnosis, understanding or enlightenment. True Gnosis is achieved through unifying with the Spirit of Truth – the Christos – that dwells within each one of us. This is the true meaning of the quest for the Grael.

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