A Disability Theology of Limits for Responding to Moral Injury

“… needs facing veterans and their families face. The pressing question is: How can churches embrace veterans whose moral limits have been injured? ”

Team Members/Contributors

Lisa Nichols Hickman Duquesne University Contact Me

About this dissertation fellowship

The phenomenon of Moral Injury (MI) is a pressing moral, theological and ecclesiological issue. With an eye toward support to veterans and their families, this dissertation situates MI within the field of disability studies, in particular, the work of Deborah Creamer’s “limit model” and then, offers support to Creamer’s model by probing Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theological construct of “limit” (German: grenze) as presented in Creation and Fall. To accomplish this task, first, I review the development of MI as a category different from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder by drawing on the scholarship of Jonathan Shay and Rita Nakashima Brock. Second, I situate MI in the world of disability studies noting the weaknesses of the medical and social models and offering a helpful alternative in Deborah Creamer’s “limit model.” Third, I propose Bonhoeffer as a helpful conversation partner for Creamer’s model using the themes developed in Creation and Fall. In response to those limits, Bonhoeffer proposes a mode for structuring human life: “the orders of preservation.” Fourth, this study will conclude with the application of a revised limit model manifesting in a renewed vision for those “orders” for veterans with MI and their implications for the veteran’s families, civic society and the church.