Rita Nakashima Brock and the Role of Church in Troubled Times

What if the church was never meant to be a waiting room for heaven—but a community that builds paradise now? Recorded live at Phillips Seminary during the 2025 Remind & Renew Conference, Loren Richmond Jr. sits down with Dr. Rita Nakashima Brock to reflect on the decline of religious institutions, the collapse of reliable media, and how early Christian communities cultivated paradise on earth—not just in theory, but through shared meals, practices, and mutual care. Drawing on her groundbreaking book Saving Paradise, Brock calls for a return to rituals that ground us in community, memory, and moral accountability.

In this episode, you'll hear about:

• The origins and impact of moral injury in war and church settings

• Why wisdom cannot grow in isolation—and how loneliness undermines it

• The role of ritual in forming resilient, embodied communities of faith

• Early Christianity’s focus on paradise in the here and now

• What Protestantism lost when it rejected communal, repetitive ritual

• A powerful critique of institutional silence, spiritual abuse, and the theology of “waiting for heaven”

• How the Eucharist once fed thousands—and why we need that vision again

 

Rita Nakashima Brock, Ph.D., has been Senior Vice President for Moral Injury Recovery Programs at Volunteers of America since 2017. An award-winning author, she is co-author of Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire (2008). She held the Endowed Chair in the Humanities at Hamline University 1990-1997, then became Director of the Fellowship Program at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. From 2001-2002 she was a fellow at the Center for Values in Public Life at Harvard Divinity School. She co-founded the Soul Repair Center at Brite Divinity School in 2012 and directed it until 2017.

 

Presenting Sponsor:

Phillips Seminary Join conversations that expose you to new ideas, deepen your commitment and give insights to how we can minister in a changing world. 

Supporting Sponsors:

Restore Clergy If you are clergy in need of tailored, professional support to help you manage the demands of ministry, Restore Clergy is for you!

Kokoro  Join in for heartfelt journeys that challenges the way we see ourselves, each other, and the world we share.

 

Future Christian Team:

Loren Richmond Jr. – Host & Executive Producer

Martha Tatarnic – Co-Host

Paul Romig–Leavitt – Associate Producer

Dennis Sanders – Producer

Alexander Lang - Production Assistant