Soul Repair: Recovery from Moral Injury After War author to deliver honors lecture at Mary Hardin-Baylor

BELTON- The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor’s Honors Program will host a special guest lecture from Rev. Dr. Rita Nakashima Brock, an internationally recognized expert on the emerging study of moral injury and recovery, on Tuesday, February 10, at 3:30 p.m. in the Manning Chapel of the Paul and Jane Meyer Christian Studies Center on the UMHB campus. The event is free and open to the public.

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. She will be speaking on themes from her book Soul Repair: Recovery from Moral Injury After War.

Brock is a commissioned minister of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and has served in a number of prominent leadership positions, including 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, which, in November 2010, recommended extensive public education on moral injury.

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. She was a professor of religion and women‘s studies for twenty years 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.