Soul Repair Center Is Launched
Rev. Herman Keizer, former director of the Christian Reformed Church’s Chaplaincy and Care Ministry, was in Fort Worth, Texas on Veteran’s Day this week to help launch the Soul Repair Center at Brite Divinity School.
Keizer is co-director of the center, which will be researching and developing training materials aimed at helping churches and other groups to reach out to veterans suffering from what are called moral injuries.
“The launch (of the center) was a success,” says Keizer, who was one of the speakers at the conference.
“The interfaith service was wonderful, the luncheon was well attended and went very well ... The presenters all made great contributions as did the responders. The open discussion confirmed the need for this program. ”
The CRC has been involved in aspects of the Soul Repair Center project over the last several years as the denomination has actively pursued and attempted to implement recommendations of a 2006 Synodical Report on War and Peace.pdf.
In addition, the CRC's Office of Social Justice joined as a sponsor of a group of churches, agencies, schools of higher education and seminaries who had formed A Truth Commission on Conscience in War.
The commission explored how religious communities can help veterans heal from moral injury and to support the families of veterans.The Soul Repair Project emerged from the commission.
In his presentation during the luncheon at the conference, Keizer described his thoughts on moral injury, a condition recognized in 2009 by the Veteran’s Administration, as well as his experiences as a chaplain.
“I was a strong proponent for religious freedom in the services and was in a position to do many things to protect the religious freedom of our service members...The role of conscience in the life of those of us in uniform was and is important to me,” said Keizer, a veteran of the Vietnam War who served for many years as a military chaplain.
Prior to the conference, Keizer gave a radio interview on a National Public Radio station in which he also spoke about and defined moral injury.
“When you go to war, you are trained to kill and break things. We train soldiers to move and engage the enemy before you think about it,” said Keizer,
Keizer gave the example of soldiers driving in a military vehicle that is approached by another vehicle that the soldiers don’t recognize and command to stop.
When the other vehicle, for some reason, fails to stop, the soldiers start to shoot.
Then, says Keizer, the soldiers see that a baby, being held in its mother’s arms, has been killed and that the mother, in tears, asks why did they shoot.
Even though the soldiers acted in what is considered an appropriate way in the course of a war, some of the soldiers may reflect on the situation and, feeling like they have done something wrong, begin to experience moral injury.
Moral injury can also come from other instances, such as handling human remains or seeing a close friend die in combat, leaving you to ask why you are still alive.
“A moral injury is the brain’s healthy response to the moral ambiguity of war,” said Rita Nakashima Brock, co-director of the Soul Repair Center, on the same radio program with Keizer.
As part of her work, Nakashima helped to write the book Soul Repair: Recovering from Moral Injury after War.[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"wysiwyg_embed_1","fid":"7499","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image media-image-right","height":"220","style":"width: 144px; height: 220px; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 5px; float: right;","typeof":"foaf:Image","width":"144"}}]]
“Moral injury can come when something you have done has violated your core moral beliefs and you don’t feel good about it,” she said.
Not all soldiers returning from battlefields suffer from moral injuries. Some return and take up their civilian lives. Others suffer from the debilitating brain injury known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Still others are dealing with the debilitating condition of moral injury -- a complex injury of the soul, says Keizer.
Keizer points to the CRC’s stances on war and peacemaking as reasons why members of the CRC ought learn more about what happens to soldiers who fight in wars such as the one in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Reformed theology, he says, calls on the church to be engaged in matters involving war and peacemaking.
“The Christian calling to work for peace is of growing importance in modern society, and peace work is a challenging task,” says the report to Synod 2006.
“Preparation is necessary for this task, as it is for other aspects of Christian living. The church has a vital role to play in equipping its members to be Christ’s agents of peace in the world today, as well as looking ahead and praying for the perfect peace that only Christ can bring.”
The Soul Repair Center’s focus is on peacemaking and especially on helping to bring God’s healing and grace to those suffering from moral injury.
Now that the center is formally launched, it will be instituting a pilot program to test their educational and training materials in early 2013.
The training materials should then be ready by the middle of next year for use regional conferences and through other gatherings to help train community organizations. Congregations and other groups can apply to be part of the pilot project.
