Valgard Murray

The Asatru Alliance (AA) is an American Ásatrú group, succeeding Stephen McNallen's Asatru Free Assembly (The old AFA) in 1987, founded by Michael J. Murray (a.k.a. Valgard Murray) of Arizona, who is a former vice-president of Else Christensen's Odinist Fellowship. The AFA seceded into two groups, the other one being The Troth. The Ásatrú Alliance was for the most part a reconstituted AFA, dominated by prior AFA members, and acting as a distributor of, previously, AFA publications.

See Ásatrú in the United States McNallen formed a new group (as Asatru Folk Assembly, (The new AFA)) in 1994, and the two organizations have existed in parallel since, temporarily united within the International Asatru-Odinic Alliance (1997–2002). Gardell (2003) classifies the AA as folkish. The AA defines Ásatrú as "the ethnic religion of the Northern European peoples".

The Ásatrú Alliance is recognized as a 501(c)(3) non-profit religious organization, or church. The AA was formed on June 19, 1988 by seven kindreds, which were members of the disbanded Ásatrú Free Assembly, who ratified on this day a set of by-laws to preserve and promote the beliefs of Ásatrú in the United States of America.

The Ásatrú Alliance promotes the native culture of the Northern European peoples. The organization denounces racism.

The AA is currently headed by a board of directors composed of representatives appointed by their kindreds, to speak on their behalf for any AA business.

The AA held its 32nd annual Althing gathering in September 2012. Kaplan (1996) estimates the AA has between 500 and 1,000 members.

As a definition of Asatru, AA cites a 1995 essay by McNallen on "what is Asatru", which concludes by summarizing the main goals as the practice of "courage, honor, the importance of the family and ancestral bonds, strength, freedom, the preservation of our kind, and joyful, vigorous life."

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