Veith, Gene Edward. Modern Fascism: The Threat to the Judeo-Christian Worldview. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1993.
Chapter 3, “‘The Hebrew Disease’ Fascist Theology” pp. 43-55.
The fascists of the 1940s rejected Jews, however, Veith considers this rejection to be rooted in the economy first, and a racial bias second (Veith 1993, 43). The Jewish control of the banking industry conflicted with the Socialist bias against abstract capital. Wealth by investment in money rather than by possessing good and property was condemned. However, the fascists pursued Jews for other reasons. “They sought to exterminate the Jews; they also sought to exterminate the Jewish influence in Western culture” (Veith 1993, 43-44). The desire was to remove its dependence on the Bible, a desire which extended toward Christianity as well. At issue was fascism’s commitment to immanence, rather than transcendence (Veith 1993, 44). Asserting a transcendent God takes away the spiritual significance of the natural world. Since fascism sought to elevate the natural world and natural religions, the traditions of Judaism and Christianity were considered its enemies (Veith 1993, 45). A recognition of God as the one who defines morality was also subject to attack by fascism. Ethics and morality were to be relativized and based on nature and community will (Veith 1993, 46). A drawback is well noted by Veith. Intolerance based on a transcendent God could not be tolerated (Veith 1993, 46). Veith goes on to note that in the natural religions of the world, moral change toward mercy or justice is virtually unheard of. It only happens in Jewish and Christian thought (Veith 1993, 47). Various philosophers, cited by Veith, have observed that the Jewish intolerance was an intolerance of oppression, exploitation, and injustice (Veith 1993, 47-48). However, the fascist philosophers blamed Jewish traditions for secular ills, thus leading to an advocacy of collectivist and organic societal norms. Thus, society was based on natural principles such as the survival of the fittest as a group, not as individuals.
Because Christainity is based on biblical ideals and creates a society remarkably similar to the Hebraic culture, fascism rejected it out of hand (Veith 1993, 49). Hitler viewed Christianity as a terrorist organization which would use moral laws to overthrow natural law and order. The fascists worked with an illusory sort of hedonistic freedom. “Individual appetites, however, were subject to the needs of the ‘collective and organic’ society. The fascists talk about moral freedom, but they reject political freedom” (Veith 1993, 49). At its root, Christianity deals with a transcendence which cannot coexist with the fascist demands that the collective be the transcendent power (Veith 1993, 50). Yet fascism could not hope to exterminate Christianity. Instead, the effort was made to make it more like primitive pagan religions. Thus the fascists emphasized the medieval heirarchical elements of Catholicism so as t create a rigid structure in which all individuality could be made subject to the collective (Veith 1993, 51). Veith observes that these attempts were sometimes successful, but since they always denied some elements of historic Christianity there was always some opposition. Protestant opposition, with its hesitancy to embrace the church calendar and with its typical emphasis on the individual, was consistently at odds with fascism (Veith 1993, 52). To attack Protestant Christianity, fascism needed to change its theology by removing the authority of the Bible (Veith 1993, 53). The higher criticism of the 19th and early 20th centuries largely accomplished this goal. Christianity could then become either a cultural phenomenon (Veith 1993, 54) or an institution which would accept the new fascist spirituality injected into the forms of Christianity (Veith 1993, 55). Either of these paths would remove the biblical transcendence from the Christian faith, transforming it into a tool for promoting fascist ideology.