Every so often in modern Heathenry, a name comes up that is bigger than the name itself.
The Troth is one of those names.
On the surface, The Troth is an organization. It has memberships, officers, clergy training, educational programs, policies, publications, committees, and all the ordinary machinery that comes with a long-running religious body. But beneath that administrative layer is something more important: The Troth is one of the major inclusive Heathen organizations that has tried to stand against folkism, racialism, and the use of Germanic religion as cover for white supremacy.
That matters because modern Heathenry has never been free from that fight.
The gods, myths, runes, symbols, ancestors, sagas, and old Germanic language have been repeatedly grabbed by people who want to turn a spiritual path into bloodline politics. The result is a constant argument over who gets to define Heathenry: those who see it as a living religious path open to sincere seekers, or those who want to turn it into a racial gate.
The Troth stands on the inclusive side of that argument.
According to its own organizational statement, The Troth is open to people who seek to know and worship the gods, honour the ancestors, and live by Germanic Heathen values, regardless of tradition, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, ability, gender, or family structure. It also states plainly that it stands against the use of Germanic religion or symbols to advance racism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, ableism, or white supremacy.
That is not vague language.
That is a line.
What Is The Troth?
The Troth began as The Ring of Troth, founded in 1987 by Edred Thorsson, also known as Stephen Flowers, and James Chisholm. Its early history has baggage, as nearly all modern Pagan institutions do. There were occult influences, personality conflicts, internal controversies, and leadership struggles. No serious reading of modern Heathen history should pretend otherwise.
But The Troth also became known as one of the major non-racialist, inclusive Heathen organizations. That distinction is important. It was not built as a folkish gatekeeping body. It was built around education, publication, community, religious training, and the idea that Heathenry could be practiced without racial exclusion.
The Troth currently describes its mission as building and supporting a diverse, inclusive spiritual community that provides education, clergy training, pastoral care, and publications for the many faiths within Heathenry. Its current values are listed as Integrity, Hospitality, Courage, Reverence, and Sustainability.
Those values are worth looking at carefully.
The Troth defines courage as anti-racism, active resistance to white supremacy, and confronting injustice and bigotry. That is a long way from the watered-down “honour, courage, loyalty” boilerplate that gets passed around in some Heathen spaces as if it were ancient law carved into a stone somewhere.
It is not.
Modern Heathenry is full of reconstruction, interpretation, invention, recovery, and correction. The honest practitioner needs to admit that. We are not walking out of an untouched Iron Age temple. We are rebuilding from fragments: poems, sagas, archaeology, folklore, comparative religion, devotional experience, and modern community work.
That means the question is not whether an organization is modern.
They all are.
The better question is this: what kind of modern thing is it trying to build?
The Problem Declaration 127 Tried to Answer
To understand why The Troth matters, we have to talk about Declaration 127.
Declaration 127 first appeared in 2016 through Huginn’s Heathen Hof. It was written as a response to escalating folkish rhetoric and, more specifically, to the Ásatrú Folk Assembly, commonly shortened to AFA.
The AFA is a folkish Heathen organization. The Southern Poverty Law Center describes it as a neo-Völkisch hate group and states that its members subscribe to the belief that pre-Christian Norse and Germanic religions can only properly be practiced by people with Northern European ancestral roots, especially white people.
That is the core problem.
Folkism tries to turn ancestry into spiritual ownership. It takes the honouring of ancestors, which can be meaningful and sacred, and twists it into a locked gate. It says, in effect, that blood decides belonging.
Declaration 127 said no.
The name comes from Hávamál stanza 127, often rendered in English along these lines:
“When you see misdeeds, speak out against them, and give your enemies no frið.”
That line is the spine of the matter.
Frith is often discussed as peace, safety, social harmony, sacred order, and the bonds that hold a community together. But Declaration 127 forces a harder question: is frith owed to those who are actively poisoning the well?
That is not a small question.
Modern Pagan spaces often love the language of tolerance. Everyone gets a seat. Everyone gets a voice. Everyone gets to speak their truth. That sounds noble right up until someone uses that openness to normalize exclusion, bigotry, and racial gatekeeping.
At that point, unlimited tolerance becomes cowardice dressed as hospitality.
Declaration 127 was important because it said, publicly and collectively, that Heathen groups should not maintain silence simply to keep peace with those who use the gods, ancestors, and traditions to justify prejudice.
The Original Declaration: A Necessary First Line
The original Declaration 127 was powerful because it gave inclusive Heathens a shared public statement. It allowed kindreds, groups, and organizations to say: we do not stand with the AFA; we do not accept racial exclusion as Heathenry; we do not grant folkism the cover of religious diversity.
That may sound obvious now, but at the time it was not always treated as obvious.
According to The Troth’s own later summary, before Declaration 127 there had been a habit in some Heathen spaces of tolerating white nationalists and folkish actors as if their presence were simply an unpleasant cost of growing the religion. The hope seemed to be that if inclusive Heathens offered enough hospitality, the folkish element might eventually soften.
That did not happen.
Because folkism does not enter the hall looking for hospitality. It enters looking for legitimacy.
That is the real lesson.
If a group built on exclusion is allowed to sit beside everyone else as merely “another kind of Heathenry,” then the wider public sees two equal options: inclusive Heathenry and racialized Heathenry. That is exactly the trap. It makes white supremacy look like a valid theological position instead of a corruption of the sacred.
The original Declaration 127 disrupted that.
It was not perfect. It was not complete. It was not a magic spell. But it gave people language. It gave people a public marker. It gave people a way to say, “No, that does not represent us.”
Sometimes the first act of rebuilding a community is not writing a complete constitution.
Sometimes it is simply pointing at the fire and saying, “That does not belong in the hall.”
The Criticism: Did Declaration 127 Go Far Enough?
Declaration 127 also drew criticism from inclusive Heathens who supported its general purpose but believed it did not go far enough.
A 2019 article in The Wild Hunt summarized one of the key concerns: because the original Declaration focused heavily on the AFA, some felt it weakened the broader statement that needed to be made. The real issue was not only one organization. The issue was folkism, racial exclusion, and opposition to inclusivity across Heathen spaces.
That criticism is fair.
There is a danger in making one group the entire target. If one organization is named as the problem, then others can dodge the issue by saying, “We are not them.” But the rot can exist under different names, different logos, and different tones of voice.
A person does not have to wear an AFA patch to carry folkish ideas.
A kindred does not have to use open slurs to create an exclusionary space.
A group does not have to shout “white supremacy” to quietly build its membership around blood, ancestry, ethnicity, gender conformity, and suspicion of outsiders.
That is why Declaration 127 had to evolve.
Declaration 127 2.0 and Declaration of Deeds
By 2021, Declaration 127 2.0 had emerged as a broader non-discrimination statement. The Troth explains the difference this way: the original Declaration gave people something to stand against, while Declaration 127 2.0 set a broader standard of conduct for people and organizations to follow.
That distinction matters.
Standing against something is necessary. But eventually, a community has to say what it stands for.
“We are not folkish” is a beginning.
It is not the whole path.
Around the same period, another statement called the Declaration of Deeds was also written and circulated. It framed the matter through a simple but deeply Heathen idea: we are our deeds. We are not made worthy or unworthy by the circumstances of birth. We are judged by what we do.
That may be one of the cleanest anti-folkish arguments available.
Folkism says blood matters most.
Declaration of Deeds says deeds matter most.
That is a direct collision of worldviews.
The Troth signed both Declaration 127 2.0 and the Declaration of Deeds in 2022. In its announcement, The Troth stated that simply saying “we will not associate with white nationalists” was not enough, because Heathens also had to declare what they were for.
That is the mature stage of the argument.
Not just “no frith with folkism,” but also: what kind of frith are we building instead?
The Collapse and Stewardship of Declaration 127
Declaration 127 did not remain stable forever.
According to The Troth’s current Declaration 127 page, after Declaration 127 2.0 was approved and released during the COVID-19 pandemic period, the structure around it began to unravel. By the end of 2021, the committee had burned out and the website had gone down. The statement still existed, but its home, signatory process, and active stewardship had weakened.
That is not surprising.
Volunteer-driven Pagan work burns people out. That is not an insult. It is a reality. People build something important, hold it together with unpaid labour, fight the same fights repeatedly, get attacked from multiple sides, and eventually run out of fuel.
Movements often fail not because the idea was wrong, but because the people carrying it were exhausted.
In April 2024, Rob Schreiwer turned over stewardship and ownership of Declaration 127 and its associated assets to The Troth at Frith Forge. The Troth then became the official steward of Declaration 127, with the stated goal of preserving it, updating it, and forming committees to vet signatories and guide its future.
That is where The Troth becomes more than just another signatory.
It becomes part of the infrastructure carrying Declaration 127 forward.
That does not mean The Troth owns inclusive Heathenry.
It does not mean The Troth speaks for every Heathen.
It does not mean The Troth is beyond criticism.
But it does mean that The Troth has taken formal responsibility for one of the major anti-folkish documents in modern Heathen history.
Did Declaration 127 Defeat Folkism?
No.
And it is important to say that plainly.
Declaration 127 did not destroy folkism. It did not erase white nationalism. It did not stop bad actors from using runes, gods, ancestors, and Germanic symbols for racial politics.
The Troth itself admits this. Its Declaration 127 page notes that folkish Paganism and white nationalism surged during the rise of the far right between 2015 and 2021, and that less than a year after Declaration 127 was written, Charlottesville happened.
That should sober everyone up.
Declarations are not wards.
They are not spells.
They are not substitutes for action.
A declaration is a line written down. Its worth depends on whether anyone is willing to stand on that line when pressure comes.
This is where modern Pagan communities often fail. We write beautiful statements. We share them. We pin them. We put them in bylaws. Then, when conflict arrives, we suddenly rediscover our fear of confrontation.
But Hávamál 127 is not passive.
It does not say, “When you see misdeeds, quietly hope things improve.”
It does not say, “When you see misdeeds, maintain neutrality so everyone feels welcome.”
It says to speak out against wrong and give no frith to enemies.
That is a hard teaching.
Hard teachings are usually the ones communities need most.
The Troth as the Inn
The Troth uses a useful image for itself: the inn on the roadside of Heathenry.
I like that image.
Not a throne.
Not a fortress.
Not a blood gate.
An inn.
An inn offers hospitality. An inn has a hearth. An inn gives travellers a place to rest, learn, eat, speak, and continue on their road. Not everyone who comes to the inn stays forever. Some people warm their hands by the fire and move on. Some become regulars. Some become innkeepers.
But an inn also has a door.
That is the part people forget.
Hospitality does not mean surrendering the house to those who would burn it down.
Frith does not mean smiling politely while someone poisons the well.
Inclusivity does not mean including exclusion.
The innkeeper has a duty to guests, yes. But the innkeeper also has a duty to the hearth, the house, and everyone already sheltering inside.
That is why “no frith with folkism” is not a contradiction of hospitality. It is a defence of hospitality.
You cannot build a welcoming hall while giving honoured seats to those who want some of the guests removed by blood, race, sexuality, gender, ancestry, or ability.
At that point, the issue is no longer politeness.
It is protection.
The Nine Noble Virtues Problem
This also matters when we talk about the Nine Noble Virtues.
Many people encounter Heathenry through simplified virtue lists: courage, truth, honour, fidelity, discipline, hospitality, self-reliance, industriousness, perseverance. These are often presented as if they are ancient Heathen doctrine.
They are not.
They are modern constructions.
That does not automatically make every word on the list worthless. Hospitality, courage, truth, and perseverance can all be good things. But the problem is not whether a virtue sounds nice. The problem is who framed it, why they framed it, and what kind of community it trains people to accept.
A virtue list can become a mask.
“Honour” can become obedience.
“Loyalty” can become silence.
“Discipline” can become authoritarianism.
“Folk” can become race.
That is why The Troth’s current values are worth noting. It does not center the Nine Noble Virtues as its defining ethical framework. Instead, it names integrity, hospitality, courage, reverence, and sustainability, and it defines courage in terms of anti-racism and active resistance to white supremacy.
That is not accidental.
That is a corrective.
No Frith with Folkism
The phrase “no frith with folkism” works because it goes straight to the heart of the issue.
Folkism wants the benefits of Heathen language without the obligations of Heathen ethics.
It wants ancestry without humility.
It wants tradition without hospitality.
It wants gods without accountability.
It wants symbols without responsibility.
It wants frith while denying frith to others.
That cannot stand.
Frith is not a decorative word. It is not a warm fuzzy feeling. It is a bond of peace, trust, and right relationship. If someone’s ideology is built on excluding sincere seekers because of race, gender, sexuality, ancestry, or ability, then that person has already broken frith.
Refusing them a seat at the hearth is not the first act of hostility.
It is the recognition that hostility was already brought in with them.
The Useful Lesson of The Troth
The Troth is not perfect.
No institution is.
Its history has conflict. Its founders were human. Its leadership has changed. Its roof has leaked. Its hearth has burned low at times. There are people who will criticize it from inside and outside Heathenry, and some of those criticisms may be worth hearing.
But perfection is not the test.
The better test is this:
When the line had to be drawn, where did the organization stand?
On the question of folkism, racial exclusion, and white supremacy in Heathenry, The Troth has placed itself on the inclusive side of the line. Its current mission, values, Declaration 127 stewardship, and signing of Declaration 127 2.0 and the Declaration of Deeds all point in that direction.
That does not make The Troth the final authority on Heathenry.
It does not make membership mandatory.
It does not mean everyone must agree with its structure, leadership, theology, or institutional choices.
But it does make The Troth a useful landmark.
When someone claims Heathenry must be folkish, The Troth proves otherwise.
When someone claims the gods belong only to bloodlines, Declaration 127 answers otherwise.
When someone claims peace requires tolerating white supremacy, Hávamál 127 answers otherwise.
When someone asks whether there can be frith with folkism, the answer should be plain.
No.
Not at this hearth.
Closing Thought
Modern Heathenry is not ancient Heathenry resurrected whole.
It is a reconstruction. A rebuilding. A difficult act of memory, scholarship, devotion, community, and correction.
That means we have choices to make.
We can rebuild the hall as a blood gate.
Or we can rebuild it as a hearth.
We can use ancestry as a weapon.
Or we can honour ancestors without turning them into border guards.
We can mistake silence for peace.
Or we can remember that sometimes peace is protected by speaking plainly against what would destroy it.
The Troth, at its best, is the inn on the roadside.
Declaration 127 is the sign by the door.
The fire is lit.
But folkism does not get a seat by the hearth.
Sources and Further Reading
- The Troth — Our Organization, Mission, Vision, and Values
- The Troth — Declaration 127
- The Troth — Declaration of Deeds and Declaration 127 2.0 Announcement
- The Wild Hunt — Enacting Declaration 127
- Southern Poverty Law Center — Asatru Folk Assembly
- The Troth UK — Organization Background
- The Longship — Heathenry FAQ
Unplugged Pagan 