Once upon a time (in 1985 to be exact), famous white nationalist and author of the pro-race war classic The Turner Diaries William Pierce cooked up a new religion called Cosmotheism. Cosmotheism got the attention of a bunch of spiritual Nazis who believed racial advancement via apotheosis was the way to celebrate the "divine spark" of whiteness without making the white race subservient to Christianity. Christianity, according to Pierce, was soft, complicit in race mixing, alien to white racial consciousness, and Jesus was too Jew-y. Instead Pierce, like many other white nationalists at the time, propped up values like racial kinship, valor, and masculinity, imagining old Norse religions to be extremely pro-white, pro-men, and anti-modern (even though it turns out in real life, the Vikings were pretty OK with queer stuff).

Neo-Paganism and racialist Odinism was the new wave - especially from the 1970s to the '90s - when white supremacist groups like the Asatru Folk Assembly popped up and Wotansvolk gained some traction. This rejection of Christianity in white nationalist circles lasted all the way into the 2010s with a notable subsection of the atheist alt-right. Anti-Christian alt-rightists understood the importance of Middle Ages Christendom on the evolution of Western white civilization but refused to actually believe in a God. Instead they stuck to calling Jesus a "k*ke on a stick" and blamed modern Christianity for the downfall of Western society due to it being too multicultural and nice presumably.

A terrible anti-Christian far-right meme

These days, however, the newer, younger generation of white nationalists AKA Tradcaths, Groypers, Zoomers, American Nationalists, and about a hundred other subgroups are Jesus-lovers through and through. They usually identify as conservative Catholic, but really conservative Catholic, like Pre-Vatican II, women-shouldn't-be-allowed-to-vote-or-have-rights-or-step-outside-of-the-house-and-gays-should-be-burned-at-the-stake Catholic.

It's not just the yung'ns either. Christian nationalism seems to be a uniting force for most white nationalists in America right now. Most recently, I saw them marching outside the Capitol carrying flags and banners which read “Jesus is my Savior. Trump is my president." Then there's that group who broke into Senate floor to praise Jesus (video below) led by that one Viking guy who was dressed like the lesser known seventh member of the Village People.

By the way this is all happening In a country founded by a bunch of dudes in wigs who specifically asked us not to make this a Christian nation. They wrote a whole Amendment about it, it's right there at the top.

It seems like modern-day white nationalists have traded in Paganism for James C Russell's vision of a Germanized Christianity. Russell's book The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity is a popular work in far-right circles as it claims that the character of medieval Christendom was inalterably shaped by the conversion of white, pagan Germanic peoples to Christianity. These Germans/Anglo-Saxons remodeled the social organization of the church and imbued the religion with their cultural values like racial kinship, valor, and military prowess (sound familiar?) Basically, Russell gave a generation of white nationalists permission to keep all the stuff they liked about Paganism but apply it to Christianity. This meant they could make Christianity as pro-white, anti-woman, anti-immigrant, and anti-charity as they wanted by shifting the source of belief away from the actual Bible and the actual Jesus to these Germanic ancestors.

It's also why you'll see a lot of white supremacists carrying Middles Ages-era Christian shields, flags, and symbols like the flag of the Knights Templar and saying stuff like Deus Vult. They especially like symbolism from the Holy Crusades era because they believe the righteous Christian fight against Islam is still going on. It's really unclear how many of them actually have faith and how many of them just like to role play as Christian crusaders. They definitely aren't fighting for Jerusalem anymore, that's for sure.

So to answer: what happened to paganism in white nationalism? It's still there. White nationalist "Christianity" is really just a faithless, racist composite of Jesus imagery, Lord of the Rings cosplay, big white Viking dudes, and anti-Semitic symbols. Real Christianity doesn't abide by white supremacy so in order to align ye old monotheism with their real religion (cyberbullying people on Reddit and having Hitler youth haircuts) they have to change a few things around.