Rita Nakashima Brock

Rita Nakashima Brock, Ph.D., is a retired scholar, editor, and writer. From 2017-2025, she was Senior Vice President and Director of the Shay Moral Injury Center at Volunteers of America and the co-author of "Soul Repair: Recovering from the Moral Injury after War" with Gabriella Lettini (Beacon 2012). In 2012 she co-founded, with Col. (Chaplain) Herman Keizer, Jr. (d.2017), the Soul Repair Center at Brite Divinity School, Ft. Worth, Texas, and directed it until 2017. She is the co-author, with Rebecca Ann Parker, of "Proverbs of Ashes: Violence, Redemptive Suffering and the Search for What Saves Us" (Beacon 2001; Japanese translation 2025) and "Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire"(Beacon 2008; Canterbury UK 2010). From 2005-2008, she was senior editor in religion at The New Press in New York. Her first book was "Journeys By Heart: A Christology of Erotic Power" (Crossroads 1988) and her second, with Susan Thistlethwaite, was "Casting Stones: Prostitution and Liberation in Asia and the U.S." (Fortress 1996). She is also author of many essays and blogs. She was born in Fukuoka, Japan, raised in the U.S. military, and lives in Minnesota.

Photo Credit: Waseem Baig, 2023.