New book by Revd Timothy Mallard PhD

We are pleased to share the news that our friend and colleague Timothy Mallard’s new book on moral injury has recently been published by Stone Tower Press. As many of you will know, Timothy was a founding member of the ICMI’s steering group and, following his retirement from a 36-year career as a US Army chaplain, we were very happy to welcome him to Durham in September 2024 for a 12-month visiting fellowship with St Chad’s College. We caught up with him to find out more.

Congratulations on the publication of this work, Timothy – it’s great to see it in print. For those yet to read it, what is the book about?

Thank you so very much Jane, and I’m deeply honoured by the support of the ICMI towards my research and writing. 

This book’s central theme is that moral and spiritual injury from war are no longer simply localised problems but ones which affect families, communities, forces, people groups, and nations.

In essence, what we once considered to be only a tactical outcome of war (e.g., one individual suffering from moral injury and her or his treatment modality) is now additionally an operational and even strategic problem of war.

From the field of ethics, specifically the Just War Tradition, this then makes these injuries ad bellum problems for consideration prior to deciding to initiate any future war, because their costs are widespread and long-lasting.

We know that you deployed to combat as a Battalion, Brigade, and Division Chaplain in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Afghanistan, and Iraq, and held strategic postings at both US Army Europe and Africa and the Pentagon. You are also a Christian ethicist and a certified Army Strategist. What aspects of your experiences and observations led you to write the book? 

I suppose that, in a very real way, I sensed and experienced these injuries long before my own career, in actual fact when my father came home from serving as a US Army Battalion Chaplain in Vietnam. I keenly felt that he was profoundly changed, though at such a young age I couldn’t understand or articulate his woundedness. Nonetheless, I watched it impact him for the rest of his life, and moreover, I watched my family react and live in relations to his woundedness.

Later, I and my family experienced these same internal injuries when I returned from war, but in one sense at a much deeper level. This is one of the reasons why I state in the book, “I own the wounds of which I write.”

Why is it timely?

Given the ongoing, intractable, and destructive natures of the wars in both Europe and the Middle East just now, we have a whole range of warriors, families, communities, people groups and nations who are experiencing moral and spiritual injury today.

Moreover, their injuries will, I fear, take many decades to address and ameliorate, and at great social and economic cost.

This, of course, does not even begin to calculate (nor do I suggest that it can) the grief, sorrow, and loss anyone may experience for loved ones, comrades in arms, and neighbours who were either physically wounded or died from combat in these theatres.

Rather, I am focusing on the resultant moral and spiritual injury of those survivors of these wars, and what it will take to aid them in seeking healing and recovery across the breadth of their social spheres and lifetimes.

Who do you hope will read this book and why? What do you hope they will each take away from it?

First, I genuinely hope that someone living with moral and spiritual injury—whether from war or not—may read this book and gain fresh understanding and hope. As I state in the book, such suffering is never an end unto itself but rather a means to an end, particularly towards a renewed personal sense of identity, meaning, and purpose. This can be true at a communal level as well.

Second, I do also hope that national security professionals, including warriors, policy experts, and decision-makers, will gain a new appreciation for the social costs of these injuries as an outcome of war. For that class of leaders, I genuinely hope to catalyse a different way of thinking about war, particularly a consideration of its costs.

What was the experience of writing the book like?

Writing any book takes not only the self-awareness, reflection, judgment and discipline of the author but also takes the support of a network of people, both personal and professional.

For me, of course, I relied daily on the encouragement, critique, and dialogue of my wife Sharon. This book would not have come to be without her, and she inspires me every day with her resilience and intellect.

Second, I needed the logistical support of a quiet academic environment and access to a first-rate research database, and both St Chad’s College and the Department of Theology & Religion at Durham offered me these vital requirements.

Third, I relied on the collegial questioning, dialogue, and mental stimulation of like-minded colleagues interested in the book’s subject, and here the ICMI was simply invaluable.

Finally, I needed the sharp professional eye and expertise of both an editor and publisher, and the team at Stone Tower Press were brilliant in supporting my writing and bringing this book to fruition.

Is there anything in the book that you think would surprise readers? Or that might be controversial?

Of course, the first controversial thing that most astute readers will notice is my delineation and definition of the term spiritual injury. This is not a standard in the academic literature, a point I grant. However, I believe that the field of moral injury studies—like all academic or practitioner disciplines—will inevitably need to be in dialogue, as it were, with other disciplines.

Here, as an ethicist of many years in the US Army, I was and am reacting to a critical ethical deficit in the profession of arms: a growing diminution to value and uphold the ontological worth of the warrior.

What I mean by this is that particularly in an age in which technological systems are rapidly replacing human beings on the battlefield, the risk to the profession of arms is that we will, in a strictly utilitarian sense, begin to prioritise such systems over human beings, not only those combatants involved in war but also those civilians who increasingly populate the battlefields of today.

My definition of spiritual injury, which I have previously likened to moral injury as a “Twin Sibling” (thus similar but distinct), is an attempt to reinvigorate the profession of arms and the wider field of moral injury studies with a primacy on upholding the created, inherent worth of persons created in the imago Dei, the image of God.

Finally, how would you summarise what action or change you hope the book inspires? 

If this book can aid an individual or family in achieving fresh healing and strength, then that will be success.

However, if it can also aid future leaders in more soberly assessing the costs of war before combat commences, then that also will be success.

Find out more

• Timothy’s book is available in paperback and Kindle formats.
• Timothy will be giving a webinar on these issues in early December. There is no charge to attend. To be notified when registration opens, please register for our mailing list.