Sailors Hold Heathen Religious Services Aboard Deployed Aircraft Carrier
3 Jan 2019
Military.com | By Hope Hodge Seck
If you're deployed aboard the carrier John C. Stennis and consider yourself a practitioner of Norse paganism, you're in luck. The carrier, now operating in the Persian Gulf, is holding lay services in the ship's chapel to serve a "small, committed" group of sailors identifying as Heathens, according to a recent news release from the carrier.
The development is the latest in a series of boosts for Heathenism in the U.S. military, a little-known religion with roots in Viking mythology that has gradually gained recognition in the services. A 2013 non-scientific "census" poll by the Norse Mythology Blog identified nearly 8,000 Heathen respondents in the U.S. and more than 16,000 worldwide. A 2018 estimate from religious author Jefferson Calico suggested there may be up to 20,000 American Heathens.
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2019/01/03/sailors-hold-heathen-religious-services-aboard-deployed-aircraft-carrier.html
