This is a fair question.

Given that a number of men I esteem and trust have suggested it may be good for me to answer such a question, and, given that the past few weeks have seen no small stir in some quarters concerning myself and this same question, and, given the recent dustup on Twitter concerning what should be done against those who laugh at certain memes, I now write to that very end. This, of course, was something I had considered doing anyway. Providence has pushed it to the front.

Five Parameters

As best I can discern, a fuller answer to the question concerns five main parameters: historical, political, narratival, publicational, and moral. Here in part 1, I'll spend some time detailing each of these. In part 2, I'll follow-up with a number of direct quotations from the book and comparisons to some other material which we would likely otherwise read and receive.

It’s likely that there will be some overlap and perhaps some minor repetition in detailing the parameters. This is because, though things can be distinguished, not everything can be neatly bifurcated; we know this by the organic connection of head to neck. My honest charge to the Reader is to read well, with a mature and judicious mind, and, if Christian, with extra helpings of hearty charity.

Let's commence.

1. Historical

I make no claim of being an expert on history. But being no expert does not mean I have no interest in history or no opinions on history. I most certainly do. A study of history can be useful in many ways: e.g. to discern patterns, to see God’s works, to understand where one comes from, and to relate the past to the present and then both to the future.

Some have said that he who does not study history is doomed to repeat it; and others have said that the only lesson we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history—point being, of course, that we should learn from history. Agreed. To which I would add: we should most certainly know and learn from that great book of supernatural history, namely the Bible, and serve its Author, the Lord of History, with a supreme faith, fealty, love, and obedience. And thus the historical is the first and one of the chief reasons for publishing the book in the first place.

As I have said to a number of persons who have asked me, “Why publish the book?” I now repeat here: because it is a primary source document from an important point of history. WW2 itself, along with the events and occurrences preceding and following it, is not just important history in the abstract; it is important history in the concrete, as it continues, in many and diverse ways, to define us today—religiously, politically, even psychologically and civilizationally. This is an observation made by many. But to cite one example, it is the opinion of the Jewish academic and scholar, Ron Unz, who has spent much in studying this time period, its principal events and actors, and all manner of different relations and consequences.

As further proof of the assertion that it is important history in the concrete, consider that whenever you want to unperson someone you can simply say they are Hitler, a Nazi, a neo-Nazi, a fascist—and, like a witch’s incantation, this seems sufficient to not only dismiss a person but to comprehensively shame them as the irredeemable who must be damned. For example, witness the recent assassination attempt upon Donald Trump, an act which no few commentators have laid upon the shoulders of the media, in part for likening Trump to Adolf Hitler.

This, of course, is not the first time, and likely it will not be the last, that the frenzied comparison has been mustered in attempt to ruin an opponent. Conversely, recent days suggest that among some it seems these bywords of "Hitler," "Nazi," and "fascist," and others like "racist," are all losing their power. In fact, R. R. Reno has written an entire book about similar things. Thus, to anyone equipped with a nose that smells, in the air of the West there is a stench emanating from the corpse of the post-war consensus, which was forged during and after WW2. All this would then make the publication of Positive Christianity also timely.

2. Political

I likewise make no claim of being a master of politics, whether classical Aristotelian or modern Schmittian or the sanitized managerial-type, nor of being an expert in political theory. For now, I leave this to brighter minds and braver souls. But I do have an interest in both politics and political theory. And thus this is the second reason for publishing the book: it is a work, best as I can classify it, of political theory—not just generally, but specifically an attempt to show the compatibility between a certain expression of Christianity with the political movement of National Socialism.

To be sure, Fabricius, though self-identifying as a theologian, makes no major attempts at exegesis of the Scripture in this particular book. Instead, he writes of various Christian motifs and ideas in relation to the political movement of National Socialism. This will likely be a methodology and approach unsatisfying to some, but reason and fairness suggest that the book’s content should be first comprehended on its own terms and ends, and then evaluated accordingly.

This also means that, when coupled with the previous parameter (historical), the book presents to us, if not a complete case, then at least a partial glimpse into what was the on-the-ground political thought and interest of some professing Christians in Germany at a time hardly insignificant to defining our own day. For example, Fabricius states that National Socialism, as a political conception, rejects Liberalism, specifically any political conception that either privatizes or pluralizes religion. Instead, National Socialism expressly favors “Positive Christianity,” which he says embraces the Christianity of the two great German churches: the Evangelical and the Roman Catholic. Further, in rejecting Liberalism, Fabricius argues that National Socialism, far from seeing or embracing a harsh separation of church and state, instead holds that the two, though distinct, should operate harmoniously.

This is verboten to many today. But for Fabricius, and, if he is correct, for Christians in Germany, this was willingly undertaken and essential to the proper order and life of the people, and was a keystone of the NSDAP. A “secular” state was thus rejected, at least allegedly. To which a reasonable mind may inquire, Why should this be deemed or dismissed as scandalous? A fair question, because, many men in our own day, both ministers and magistrates, are not only recognizing that secular liberalism is a myth, but that it is a deadly myth, which in vicious ways ushers souls to hell and goads the commonwealth to disintegration.

Fabricius, then, offers a solution which he and others grasped and wielded in response to this exigency. Whether or not one agrees with all the policies, procedures, and deeds of that solution or of its agents is one question; but surely all Christians of sound mind and fair sense can agree that it is clearly impossible for the state to be irreligious, and that instead, the state ought to, indeed must countenance Christianity, and that the church and state, though distinct, ought to and must work together. In a better day of the West, these things were largely assumed.

Further, the conditions of Weimar Germany, which in ways preceded and catalyzed the NSDAP, were not entirely unlike those currently devouring the West. Rampant moral degeneracy, mass corruption in media, socio-economic collapse, multi-layered deracination, political upheavals and infighting, border chicaneries, racial strife—all this was taking place then, just as the same is now taking place in the West. Indeed, the recent opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics, which has since been pulled from YouTube due to mass outrage, could be aptly described as a recapitulation of the Weimar spirit, with commentators, such as MartyrMade (Darryl Cooper), making the observation that it would be infinitely better for France to be under Nazi occupation than to have what is does now under Liberalism.

Thus, as political interests and solutions are entertained in efforts to renew the West, and as Liberalism is seen as the paltry and deathly mirage that it is, it is not entirely without warrant to look, in part, to what actions and policies, even what spirit, was undertaken in Germany. This is not to suggest we must adopt a wholesale acceptance of whatever the NSDAP did. But it is to say that this was a largely Christian (even if nominally Christian) people, who ascended out of civilizational hell, a hell in some ways worse than ours, and they did so in a remarkably short period of time, in a post-industrial context, and specifically in opposition to the promises and prerogatives of Liberalism—and all, according to Fabricius, as intentionally asserting and countenancing Christianity, not forbidding it.

Thus, politically, it is a matter worth studying—even if one regards the entire enterprise as mistaken or malevolent, because, if you do regard it as such, you should at least want to learn what not to do.

3. Narratival

The third reason for the publication of the book concerns narratival interests. As was said above, WW2 serves a potent narratival purpose in our day, where, clearly, it is not only meant to be, but is in fact and in practice assiduously leveraged as the defining socio-religious event and mythos of the West—which, as any Scripture-reader can attest, is therefore much like the relationship that the Israelites had to the Exodus: constantly referred back to as a constitutive crisis and emancipation, mined and harvested nearly infinitely for meaning, for identity, for purpose, for imperatives, for that which must and must not be done—made both to direct and to damn—not just the individual man, but the mass consciousness—the Salvation and Judgment inspiring and constraining the faith, the moral imagination, and the political will of Western Civilization itself.

Just as Israel was commanded by the LORD God not to look back to nor long for Egypt, the divine directive of Lord Liberalism is to never again approach anything remotely approximating the Third Reich of Germany—not just in substance, but merely in appearance or connotation or emotive response.

Can any sane man deny this is the case?

It therefore behooves those whose interest is to advance out of Liberalism to know and to own this. This does not mean, again, that one must condone or celebrate all that the NSDAP did; but it does mean that one must understand there is no going forward without going back. Kamala Harris, though a clearly silly and wicked woman, is worth marshaling here: “what can be, unburdened by what has been,” she says. Indeed. Narrativally, the West must be unburdened by what has been, namely the WW2 or Liberal mythos, if the West is to be free to pursue what can be.

Someone may say, “But you just said you are not an expert on history or politics.” True. But I have two eyes and a brain, which I use, and I also read the Bible. If we are to deal with our issues meaningfully—and by “issues” I mean the meta-civilizational issues, the whole package of man, society, politics, history, race, and religion—then we have to understand that the Liberal mythos will be summoned and commanded against us, like an attack dog, forbidding us from even the slightest entertainment of a positive self-conception at the meta-civilizational level. Trump, substantively, is not a conservative and certainly not a paleoconservative, and yet he is branded Hitler. What, then, do you think will happen to a real conservative or a real and vital conservative movement?

The point here is not to affirm or deny the veracity or plausibility of any given claim made for or against the NSDAP in the prevailing narrative. Others, like the Jewish academic, Ron Unz, as mentioned above, or historians like David Irving, are far better equipped and studied to do such work, and have indeed done so, rendering their own better informed judgments quite modestly. The point is that we must own reality: the way in which the prevailing narrative is exploited against renewal must be noted, named, and nulled if there is to be a renewal.

In other words, how can there be renewal if the narratival impediment to enacting that renewal is never removed and replaced? One humble way to facilitate such ends—perhaps one only open to the daring of a mustard seed faith—is to publish and read such material—to see what then-living professing German Christians thought and believed and said, rather than to watch the latest Hollywood film, usually unrealistic and clearly dehumanizing, about the “brainwashed” Germans.

Concerns about Jewish influence is not something unique to Germany; in fact, it was something embedded in the ranks of the US Military and its intelligence apparatuses for decades prior to and even following WW2. Unz sums this up:

"Put simply, U.S. military leaders in those decades  widely believed that the world faced a direct threat from organized Jewry, which had seized control of Russia and similarly sought to subvert and gain mastery over America and the rest of Western civilization."

This, of course, is not Unz's conclusion. Unz is simply summing up the work of another man, namely Joseph Bendersky, a Jewish historian who specializes in Holocaust and Nazi Germany studies. The summary is derived from Benderksy's work The "Jewish Threat"—a product of a decade of research into myriad pages of declassified Intelligence archives.

As a further confirmation of the narratival power of the Liberal mythos, consider these few points. Shulamit Aloni, former Minister of Education in Israel and Israel Prize winner in 2000, has specifically admitted that Israelis exploit the Holocaust and anti-Semitism to protect Israel from criticism; it is "a trick" that Israelis use, she says, with the Holocaust being invoked especially in Europe, while anti-Semitism is especially invoked in the USA. Supposing this Jewish woman is opening the window to the air of truth, then, when coupled with Pat Buchanan’s statement, that Washington D. C. is Israeli occupied territory, we can perhaps began to discern how the narratival power of the Liberal mythos is operative today. It was only weeks ago that Thomas Massie, senator from the great state of Kentucky, revealed in an episode with Tucker Carlson, that every Republican politician has their own specially appointed AIPAC personnel.

If Aloni, Buchanan, and Massie are correct in what they have said, then it is a matter within the reach of rudimentary intellection to think that once one initiates an attempt to resolve the problems which Buchanan and Massie raise, then, inevitably, there will be a sure reprisal made, and doubtless the attempted resolution will be branded “anti-Semitic.” In other words, imagine the scenario that Israeli interests conflict with American interests, and that this conflict is either extensive or intensive enough that Israel must be confronted directly: what will happen?

What will happen is that the narratival power of the Liberal mythos will be mustered against you to prevent you from confronting Israel, which thus hinders you from helping your own. This is to say nothing of the ecclesiastical expression of this same Liberal mythos and spirit, which, as recently as this week, has manifested among some on Twitter with moral denunciations and threats of excommunication simply for asking questions about the prevailing narrative or for laughing at memes concerning it. It is therefore a civilizational imperative for the Christian West to break free from this straitjacket.

4. Publicational
The fourth reason for publishing the book is what I am calling the publicational. Some have expressed sincere curiosity at why a publisher would publish such a book, the thought being that, relative to the other books already published which are largely theological, it seems that Positive Christianity in the Third Reich is out of place. I can understand the sentiment.

But if the “About” page of the website were read, I must say I cannot understand the sentiment, because, it is there where the publication criteria is both named and detailed. Specifically, the criteria is reformed, right-wing, and classic—limiting but also intentionally broad, intended to give space to be eclectic and flexible, and to produce a dynamic spectrum rather than a narrow niche. The book’s content clearly falls under the second criterion: right-wing. Thus it abides by established criteria, and is therefore no strange thing.

In other words, the book’s content is right-wing. Right-wing is one of our criteria for what to publish. Therefore, it fits.

5. Moral

The final and perhaps the most important reason for publishing the book is the moral. By this I mean especially the 9th commandment, “thou shalt not bear false witness,” and all that it demands and forbids. Particularly, a judicious application of this royal commandment suggests, if not requires, that we hear both sides of a matter.

The Westminster Larger Catechism says that the duties of the ninth commandment include preserving and promoting truth, defending the innocent, and refusing to admit an evil report; and likewise, the ninth commandment forbids prejudicing the truth and good name of others, suborning false witnesses, speaking untruth, wickedly rejoicing at the disgrace and infamy of others, and not hindering what we can in others which procures an ill name.

This means there is a moral case to be made that we should at least be willing, if not be required, to hear NSDAP members in their own words explain their own thinking and actions, why they joined the party, what they believed it entailed and stood for, so on and so forth. And this is exactly what this book offers, at least in a small way. Indeed, not only was Fabricius a member of the NSDAP, he was a professing Christian, specifically a Protestant, likely a Presbyterian, as suggested by his other writings in a Presbyterian journal. And we are morally required to show greater favor and charity to those who confess the common Faith.

Conclusion

Thus far, then, for part 1.

In part 2, I will share some quotations from the book and make some comparisons to other material.