Trauma and Its Aftermath: Moral Injury and Moral Meaning Making
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What does it mean to have a “soul wound?” Moral injury is a relatively new term, and defines a profound change in or betrayal of one’s sense of right or wrong. What is our part in creating space for healing? How can these injuries that have shown up in the worlds of mental health and spiritual care be repaired? Rev. Dr. Brock, co-founder and Director of the Soul Repair Center at Brite Divinity School in Ft. Worth, Texas, is taking the lead in bridging these worlds. She describes moral injury as “a complex wound of the soul,” resulting from empathy and self-reflection on values in the wake of morally ambiguous, extreme conditions. Brock uses the term “soul repair” as a way to describe the process of recovery from moral injury.
Join us for keynote lectures from Dr. Brock, workshops and panel discussions led by local practitioners who will provide both insight and service resources. Veterans and family members will share stories of trauma and on-going healing. Together this event will benefit each and every attendee with tools and inspiration for transformative work.
Plenary Speaker: Rev. Dr. Rita Nakashima Brock
Rev. Dr. Rita Nakashima Brock is Research Professor of Theology and Culture and Founding Co-Director of the Soul Repair Center at Brite Divinity School. A noted theologian, she has lectured all over the world. As Co-Founder of the Soul Repair Center, Dr. Brock has become an internationally recognized expert on the emerging study of moral injury and recovery. She is a commissioned minister of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and has served in a number of prominent denominational leadership positions, including the General Board and Administrative Committee, as well as being the first chair of the Common Global Ministries Board of the Christian Church and the United Church of Christ.
Her book, co-authored with Rebecca Ann Parker, Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire, was a finalist for an American Academy of Religion Award in reflective, constructive theological studies, and Publisher’s Weekly selected it as a best book in religion in 2008. In December 2008, she and Dr. Gabriella Lettini began work on the Truth Commission on Conscience in War (www.conscienceinwar.org), which, in November 2010, recommended extensive public education on moral injury. In response, she and Dr. Lettini co-authored Soul Repair: Recovery from Moral Injury After War (Beacon, 2012).
A native of Fukuoka, Japan, whose mother was trained in nursing by the Red Cross after WW II, Dr. Brock’s birth father was a U.S. Army veteran of the Korean War and her stepfatherwas a U.S. Army veteran of World War II and the Vietnam War who served 29 years in the military. Dr. Brock earned her Ph.D. in philosophy of religion and theology in 1988 from Claremont Graduate University, becoming the first Asian American woman in the country to earn a doctorate in theology and the first ever to serve on the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Religion (AAR).
She was a professor of religion and women‘s studies for two decades before becoming Director of the Bunting Institute at Radcliffe College in 1997. The Bunting was an advanced research institute for exceptional women in every academic and professional field, as well as in the arts, sciences, and civic leadership. She was a member of the strategic planning team that designed the new Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study that included the Bunting and that merged with Harvard University in 1999 as its tenth school. From 2001-2002, she was a Fellow at the Center for Values in Public Life at Harvard Divinity School. From 2004 to 2012, she co-founded and directed Faith Voices for the Common Good, which generated online and in-person networked social change projects for progressive faith leaders and organizations and which helped organize the Truth Commission on Conscience in War.
Press Information
Moral Injury and Moral Meaning Making Official Flyer
VOICES May Event Press Release