The study of moral injury as a concept has allowed us to more closely examine the complex moral environments in which we operate. This session will attend to the ways in which individuals experience moral injury in religious and cultural environments in ways that question the moral expectations that undergird them.
Clergy struggling with substance use disorders often experience a distinctive form of moral injury—one that fractures both their vocational identity and the life of the faith communities they serve. As leaders in a highly moralized profession, clergy are expected to embody theological and moral certainty, leaving little room for vulnerability or failure. This paper presents an original framework of trifold betrayal and systematic spiritual harm, analyzing the interplay of personal, institutional, and communal betrayals that deepen clergy moral injury. Despite theological commitments to grace and healing, Christian institutions often withhold meaningful opportunities for recovery, reinforcing cycles of shame and exclusion. Building on the work of Carrie Doehring and Larry Kent Graham, this paper argues for a theological and institutional paradigm shift grounded in the freedom to fail. It proposes harm reduction as faithful praxis, offering both clergy and congregations a restorative vision rooted in grace, reconciliation, and vocational freedom.
This presentation combines close textual and performative analysis of comedian Dave Chappelle’s recent work with comparative theological and ethical inquiry, as well as intersectional approaches, to investigate how humor can simultaneously cause and potentially heal moral injury across diverse communities. By focusing on Chappelle’s role as both a provocateur – accused by some of “punching down” on transgender identities – and a cultural figure sought for guidance (notably as host of Saturday Night Live following multiple pivotal U.S. elections), the study integrates perspectives from A. Roy Eckardt, Brian Powers, and Resmaa Menakem to illustrate how comedy serves as a ritual space where communities confront trauma and reimagine manhood. Anchored in Alyssa Maldonado-Estrada’s conceptualization of manhood as an institutionally guarded construct forged through family, community, and faith commitments, the talk highlights Chappelle’s Islamic identity and suggests that comedy, properly understood, can foster new possibilities for moral repair and constructive public discourse.
Existing in a world not built for disabled bodies and within millennia of hierarchical church history which still today too often insists that some bodies are better than others, this paper examines the moral injury experienced by disabled people when dealing with the ableist theology of their faith communities. While in recent years some scholars working at the intersection of psychology and disability have thought about moral injury itself as a type of disability, I am instead interested in the way that ableist theologies taught by and reinforced in community cause moral injury for disabled Christians whose perception of the Divine does not match the embedded, communal theologies they have been taught. Through dialogue with disabled and not-yet-disabled scholars, this paper offers a first practical step beyond religious ableism in order to disrupt the continuing violence and cocreate healing for disabled beloveds who have been morally injured by the church.