Soul Repair Center, Brite Divinity School

We're thrilled to serve as the new and permanent home for the Moral Certificate Program (MICP)! This is an excellent 10-week course honed and refined over the past several years by Dr. Rita Nakashima Brock, co-founder of the Soul Repair Center, and several expert colleagues in the field.

Much more information to follow from Brite Divinity School. In the meantime, you can learn more about this unique program through the flier and link in the comments.

The Spring 2026 MICP course will run April 6 to June 17.

Jonathan Shay, a psychiatrist caring for Vietnam veterans in the 1990s, provided the first definition of military moral injury: “the betrayal of what’s right, in a high-stakes situation, by someone who holds power.” Many of us veterans of later wars, full of remorse and regret over the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and the human suffering to which we contributed, felt Shay’s language of moral injury gave us a vocabulary to name a sinister truth.

As power holders betray what’s right in today’s high-stakes situations across the globe, particularly in the display of unrelenting military force as “Operation Epic Fury” unfolds, I echo this historically and contextually informed joint statement from Rev. Terri Hord Owens, General Minister and President of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and Rev. Dr. Karen Georgia A Thompson, General Minister and President/CEO of the United Church of Christ.

��“We call for an end to this belligerency.”

Rev. Michael Yandell, PhD
Director of the Soul Repair Center
Brite Divinity School

The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the United Church of Christ have issued a joint statement condemning the recent US-Israel attacks against Iran and calling for an immediate end to violence, a return to diplomacy, and the protection of innocent lives caught in the crossfire.

Read the full statement at https://disciples.org/ecumenical/a-joint-statement-on-the-us-israel-attacks-against-iran/

It was an honor and a delight to spend an afternoon in conversation about moral injury in healthcare with soon to graduate TCU nursing students in their course on disaster nursing. To get into the topic, we utilized a case study of Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina in dialogue with Cynda Rushton’s work on moral suffering, distress, and resilience in healthcare.

To all attending the American Academy of Religion / Society of Biblical Literature (AAR/SBL) annual conference this year, please join Brite’s Soul Repair Center Saturday, November 22 at 11 a.m. for a special session honoring Dr. Jonathan Shay, a clinical psychiatrist and former VA staff psychiatrist, who coined the term “moral injury.”

Theater of War Productions honors Shay and his work with Vietnam veterans by performing selections from a Greek tragedy centered on the death of Heracles. In Shay’s groundbreaking first book, Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character, he read ancient Greek tragedies alongside the experiences of Vietnam veterans. Shay received a MacArthur Foundation grant, also known as the “genius award”, for his work.

Jonathan Shay’s 3-point description of moral injury, a “betrayal of what’s right, by someone who holds legitimate authority, in a high stakes situation”, remains foundational for all who study moral injury and seek to reform the systems and policies that lead to it.

Brite’s Soul Repair Center is excited to collaborate with Brian Powers at the International Centre

We’re excited to collaborate with Brian Powers at the International Centre of Moral Injury and Rita Nakashima Brock, original co-founder of the Soul Repair Center.

There is still time to register for Tuesday's free webinar "Sexual Assault in Military Academies" with Melissa K. McCafferty. Register at https://voa.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_o6-tYQMjSSSc78pEgkIhaw #/registration