Modern Heathenry is a new religion that takes its gods and much of its practice from the old sources. It has no continuity with pre-Christian worship and does not usually claim any. The Asatruarfelagid was recognised by Iceland in 1973 and has become the country's largest non-Christian religious body; comparable organisations exist across Scandinavia, in the United Kingdom, in North America and elsewhere. Practice centres on blot and sumbl, on hospitality and oath-keeping, and on the household and local group rather than congregational worship.
The movement has a persistent political problem, and it is better stated than avoided. Norse symbolism was appropriated by German nationalists before and during the Nazi period, and is used today by white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups, who have carried hammers, valknuts and runes at rallies and use them extensively in prisons. A minority of Heathen organisations, usually described as folkish, restrict membership by ancestry.
The response from the rest has been explicit and public. In 2016 a statement known as Declaration 127, named for the stanza of the Havamal that tells you to speak out when you see wrongdoing, was issued in denunciation of the Asatru Folk Assembly after that body stated that non-white and LGBT people were not welcome in its tradition. By 2022 it had been signed by around 180 organisations in more than twenty countries. Iceland's Asatruarfelagid has repeatedly and publicly rejected racial readings of the religion, and did so from its founding, when the Lutheran bishop opposed recognition on precisely those grounds.
The symbols are worn overwhelmingly by people with no such politics, which is exactly why the dispute matters so much to Heathens themselves.