Asa Faith

Asa Faith is presented as a source of ritual comfort and communal belonging for a group of soldiers and soldiers’ spouses serving at Camp Bastion in Afghanistan. Their practice draws on an inherited Northern past, but the group also emphasizes that its interpretation is its own and that its members stand as equals.

Practice and Meaning

One member describes having practiced Asa Faith since boyhood and finding comfort in its rituals in the war zone. As the group faced the Taliban’s faith-based movement while living exposed and far from home, he felt that they lacked something without a faith of their own. Turning to the past they had inherited in the North offered a way to address that need.

He also links religious practice to everyday life: he says he got along better day to day than most of the others, and that many of them eventually found peace in the faith. In this account, Asa Faith is not only a set of beliefs but a resource for people coping with the pressures of military life away from home.

The Einherjer Blótlaug

The group had already established a blótlaug at Camp Bastion, and later formed the Einherjer farm community. Gro explains the name through Norse mythology: the einherjer are warriors in Valhalla who defend the gods against the jötnar. She considers the name fitting because the members have either served as soldiers or been married to soldiers in Afghanistan.

Gro identifies herself as the group’s goði, while stressing that the members are equal. The combination of a named religious role and an explicit claim of equality describes the community’s structure without presenting its leadership as a hierarchy of status.

Independent Interpretation

The blótlaug is not associated with Forn Siðr. Its members instead interpret Asa Faith in their own way, distinguishing their local practice from that organization. The evidence therefore presents Asa Faith here not as a single standardized system but as a tradition given particular form by a community shaped by military service, shared ritual, and a sense of Northern inheritance.