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Welcoming the Warrior

Drew Stockstill

Drew Stockstill is a chaplain with the United States Navy, serving as command chaplain for the USS Porter.
No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends (John 15:13, NRSV)

Welcoming the Warrior: The Role of Ritual for Military Veterans within the Reformed Tradition

Several years ago, I was rummaging around in my parents’ storage shed and came across some documents belonging to my grandfather. Frank A. Graham Jr. was a Navy pilot in WWII. He flew in the Pacific theater of war. He flew off of aircraft carriers with famous names like the USS Enterprise and USS Intrepid. Sometimes the carrier was under attack, on fire as my young grandfather took to the sky. Sometimes he flew at night. Sometimes he was among a few to return. He went on to be among the first of the Navy’s famous Blue Angels. He was proud of his service, but he was also somewhat conflicted. 

My grandfather was a staunch Episcopalian. He loved the liturgy. “Lift High the Cross” makes my mother cry because it reminds her of her daddy. We sang it at my ordination. The work of the church that affected him resounds through the generations. Something in the ritual was an anchor for him throughout his post-war life, as it is for my parents, and now for me. 

After over a decade in parish ministry serving Presbyterian and Lutheran congregations, I became a Navy chaplain and carried—and still carry—the work of the church out to the field with Marines and to sailors on warships. On the Navy ship on which I serve as the command chaplain, I provide a Protestant divine service on the mess decks each Sunday at sea. We gather around the liturgy of the Reformed tradition and share in communion using fresh bread baked for the Lord’s Table by the ship’s baker. We sing hymns both modern and traditional as the ship rocks. We confess our sins together and we gather around the Word. We carry it out into the world, which for us consists of three hundred fellow shipmates. While we serve, we worship, and something in the ritual anchors us in times of struggle and separation from loved ones. For sailors whose day-to-day reality involves having rockets fired at them, chaplains bring the rituals of comfort and prayers for protection, providing a place to find hope and belonging and a way to connect to something outside themselves and greater than the fear of violence. This is the work of the church. 

Among my grandfather’s papers in that sweltering shed was a poem written in blue-colored pencil on yellowed paper. It was a reflection on the fear he felt flying at night. As I write on a Navy ship myself, I can easily imagine him in his own stateroom, lying on his rack, sleepless. his mind churning, trying to process what he had experienced and turning to poetry to soothe his soul, to try to understand—a liturgy of sorts—a work trying to make meaning and find comfort out of the terror, the dread, the thrill, the courage, he experienced at war. 

It was a mercy for him that in the post-war United States, the church stood ready to receive its returning young men and women scarred by the experiences of war. They were warmly welcomed and became not only leaders but the builders of the Western church’s last boom. They found meaning and belonging; they committed themselves to the Christian education of their young. They were far from perfect, but they gathered with their imperfections in church and they confessed them to God, and they heard the assurance of pardon for the weight of the things they carried. They were heroes, and many were conflicted, carrying shame, doubt, and grief, but the rituals of the church were there to remind them of our shared hope for a new reality in Christ.

As I offer the elements of the Eucharist to my sailors, I know that many of them have no such church to receive them, and those that do find churches that struggle with how to respond to their military service in authentic, meaningful, and ultimately transformative ways. The conflicts in which today’s soldiers and sailors have served, and that of the previous generation during the Vietnam War, are more questionable than WWII, and the church itself also questions in ways that were simply not the case for veterans of the last world wars. Today’s church is a shadow of its twentieth-century self, and today’s veterans do not have the clear path into the church that my grandfather did. As a result, the church and the veterans are missing out on what we need from each other. 

The Presbyterian church in its strong and good conviction to pursue peace, to stand against violence in all its forms, has also struggled with how to respond to those who serve in the military. Church leaders may discuss the appropriateness of an American flag in the sanctuary or how to recognize Veterans Day, but not how to care for veterans, and not just the older ones who remain as the stalwarts in our pews, but today’s new veterans who are overwhelmingly millennials and Gen-Z. 

In what follows I will lay out the vital role the church should play in the lives of today’s military service members and veterans and the moral, pastoral, and Christian imperative that we do more to support our society’s warriors; and I will suggest that the Reformed church already has the gifts and experience within our tradition to provide a crucial ministry for them.

Those Who Fight

The United States has a warrior culture. There are more than 18 million living veterans in the United States. In 2023, 13.3 percent of the federal budget was allocated to defense spending. Roughly two million members of the population in the United States serve in the military. Not all of them are American citizens; in fact, many are immigrants, serving as a pathway to citizenship and to bring their families to the United States. Today’s military personnel are largely between eighteen and twenty-five years old, most born after 9/11; if they grew up in our churches, they would have graduated from our youth groups in the last four years. Within the military, 17 percent are female and 31 percent are people of color. Their religious makeup reflects the demographics of millennials and Gen-Z, which we know all too well. Many are hungry for meaning, belonging, and spiritual connection, but many are also “unchurched” or religiously unaffiliated. The modern United States military is made up of individuals who are young and diverse. It includes those for whom the church claims to have preferential care. Many have come from hardship; many were marginalized; some were refugees or experienced homelessness; some may know the horrors of war—and they all joined the United States military, becoming warriors, wearing the uniform. 

Within the church, one’s convictions about war have little bearing on our faithful response to those who serve. We are compelled by Christ’s mandate to love, the lawful order given by Jesus to all his followers. To love our neighbor means to love our neighbors who are or were warriors regardless of how just or unjust we deem the cause for which they served. It is likely the more unjust we deem a conflict the greater the psychic wound the warrior may carry, especially if their actions contributed to the death of others. Those who served in a time of war but were not called upon to fight may also carry a guilt complex.

There is a level of conditioning for violence that occurs in military training, often beginning when the recruit is at a psychologically malleable age. David Grossman, retired Army lieutenant colonel and author of On Killing, writes, “The conditioning is astoundingly effective, but there is a psychological price to pay.”1 Training for soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen is replete with rituals and traditions that mark the making of a warrior. But few such rituals exist for warriors leaving the military. This is arguably the more vital ritual. As Tim O’Brien wrote in his seminal book, The Things They Carried, “They carried all they could bear, and then some, including a silent awe for the terrible power of all the things they carried.”2 We assist warriors in taking on these things: the armor, the weaponry, the identity of a warrior, but who will help them put down these things they carried when they are no longer called upon to be prepared to fight? Who will help them carry the loads they cannot lay down—the psychic baggage that will be with them for the rest of their lives? What can fill the void left by the loss of such intense comradery? 

Churches can play a vital role in facilitating the warrior’s transition from the “battlefield” to civilian society. We do not need them to be warriors in their homes and communities, at least not to the degree they were in uniform. They must know they have left the battlefield or, as is too often the case, the home or the mind becomes the battlefield. Without such rituals, which, I will show, the church already has within our tradition, warriors often continue to fight internal battles. 

Central to the gospel is the belief that humans can change and that God changes lives. This means that those who have been prepared for battle and those who have been trained to kill can change and can cease to be warriors when they hang up their uniforms. Many veterans struggle with their identity and a loss of intense community and belonging when they leave the military. “If I am not a Marine, who am I?” “I have spent my whole life as a sailor performing this particular job. What good am I if I cannot do that anymore?” Grossman writes:

Repeatedly we see combat Veterans describe the powerful bonds that men forge in combat as stronger than those of husband and wife. John Early, a Vietnam veteran and an ex-Rhodesian mercenary, described it this way: “This is going to sound really strange, but there’s a love relationship that is nurtured in combat because the man next to you—you’re depending on him for the most important thing you have, your life, and if he lets you down you’re either maimed or killed. If you make a mistake the same thing happens to him, so the bond of trust has to be extremely close, and I’d say this bond is stronger than almost anything, with the exception of parent and child. It’s a hell of a lot stronger than man and wife—your life is in his hands, you trust that person with the most valuable thing you have.”3

The Reformed tradition professes a greater identity in Christ and belonging in the profoundly powerful community of the church. The Second Helvetic Confession attests, “Joined together with all the members of Christ by an unfeigned love, they show that they are Christ’s disciples by persevering in the bond of peace and holy unity.”4 Joining together with the members of Christ, veterans can find identity as a disciple and a bond of love stronger than what they knew in combat.

Rituals of Purification

Our society often subjects our young to the trauma of war just after the church has surrounded them with all the care, attention, and faith formation of the youth group. They are only a few years removed from our public congregational commitments to nurture them at their baptisms and confirmations. For those who go into military service and return home or to another worshiping community, we have an opportunity to enact another ritual that shows our acknowledgment of their experience in all its complexity and our commitment to accompany them in their healing, ideally including those former warriors in our communities who have gone before them. Grossman notes, “Societies have always recognized that war changes men, that they are not the same after they return. That is why primitive societies often require soldiers to perform purification rites before allowing them to rejoin their communities. These rites often involve washing or other forms of ceremonial cleansing.”5

Our modern warrior society does not provide these rituals of purification, but such rituals exist within our Reformed worship tradition in the Service of Healing and Wholeness, Confession of Sin and Forgiveness, and the Reaffirmation of Baptism. Churches could adapt these resources and create new ones to serve the need for modern purification rites for warriors. Philosopher Dr. Shannon E. French, director of the Inamori International Center for Ethics and Excellence and professor at Case Western Reserve University, notes:

A vast array of cultures across the globe have understood the need for some form of spiritual cleansing and ritualized transition for the warrior passing from the world of war into the world of peace. In ancient Rome, the Vestal Virgins would bathe returning soldiers from the Legions to purge them of the corruption of war. In Africa, returning Maasai warriors had purification rites, and Native Americans of the Plains tribes conducted sweat lodge ceremonies for their warriors before they could rejoin their tribes. Embedded in these rituals are essential lessons from history about what we need to do for those who have transgressed the moral lines of civil society in order to protect and defend civilization for the rest of us.”6

The biblical witness shows these rituals were present for the formation and the recovery of warriors. “Moses spoke to the people: ‘Equip some of your men for battle,’” and “from the thousands of Israel, one thousand from each tribe were selected. Twelve thousand were equipped for battle” (Num 31:3, 5, CEB). We too have selected from among the diverse young of our population those who volunteer to fight and have equipped them for battle. 

In ancient Israel, after the intense and disturbing warfare which included burning cities and the killing of women and children, the trauma of the warrior would undoubtedly be great. The warriors were carrying out the commands of the Lord and Moses, and while it may be anachronistic to read our modern morality into the ancient ideas of war, nonetheless, we may imagine there were moral injuries among the warriors. Moral injury is described by the National Center for PTSD: “In traumatic or unusually stressful circumstances, people may perpetrate, fail to prevent, or witness events that contradict deeply held moral beliefs and expectations. . . . Moral injury is the distressing psychological, behavioral, social, and sometimes spiritual aftermath of exposure to such events.”7 But there existed a ritual for Israel’s warriors to be cleansed in the aftermath of violence. “[Moses said,] ‘You will remain outside the camp for seven days. Everyone among you or your captives who has killed a person or touched a corpse must purify themselves on the third and seventh days” (Num. 31:19, CEB). Eleazar, the priest, and the Levites oversaw these rituals of purification for warriors. 

In ancient Israel, warriors were respected members of the community. In the time of King David some are described as “mighty and experienced warriors, expert with shield and spear, whose faces were like the faces of lions and who were swift as gazelles on the mountains” (1 Chron. 12:8, ESV). The whole community participated in the formation of these warriors. “All these men of war, armed for battle, came to Hebron determined to make David king over all Israel.” As they prepared for battle their families provided for them, bringing them food and drink. “Even their neighbors from as far away as Issachar, Zebulun, and Naphtali were bringing food.” And they provided for them in abundance: flour, fig cakes, clusters of raisins, wine, oil, oxen, and sheep, “because Israel was joyful” (1 Chron. 12:38, 40, CEB). 

Our own society is also eager to prepare warriors, spending billions in training and equipment, honoring those who volunteer to fight, and providing in abundance for the needs of warriors. But our aftercare of service members is less joyful and lacking in full support of the healing required in the aftermath of military service. The church has seemingly fully relinquished this task to the Department of Veterans Affairs, which struggles to meet the high demand of physically and mentally injured service members. Their care is a role the church could resume and could more effectively carry out because we are spiritually motivated and equipped by our religious tradition to do so. 

In ancient Israel, following war, the whole religious community that prepared the warriors for battle also participated in the ritual of welcoming home and honoring the warrior. “David told the leaders of the Levites to appoint some of their relatives as singers to raise their voices joyfully, accompanied by musical instruments, including harps, lyres, and cymbals” (1 Chron. 15:16, CEB). This was the work of the worshiping community which made no moral judgment on the work of the warrior whom they prepared for battle, but recognized their call to service on behalf of the larger community. The whole community’s response was a dutiful act of love.

Our more modern wars, with their moral ambiguity and questionable causes, have resulted in the church and larger society neglecting the warrior. From the Vietnam War forward, veterans were met with more protest than welcome. Too often they received a “Thank you for your service” rather than authentic forms of recognition for the complexity of emotions they likely carried and avenues to understanding that could lead to healing. According to Grossman,

if we accept that we need an army, then we must accept that it has to be as capable of surviving as we can make it. But if society prepares a soldier to overcome his resistance to killing and places him in an environment in which he will kill, then that society has an obligation to deal forthrightly, intelligently, and morally with the psychological event and its repercussions upon the soldier and the society.8

The church can provide from among our traditions such honest rituals. Historian Richard Gabriel writes in No More Heroes: Madness and Psychiatry in War:

Psychologically, these rituals provided soldiers with a way of ridding themselves of stress and the terrible guilt that always accompanies the sane after war. It was also a way of treating guilt by providing a mechanism through which fighting men could decompress and relive their terror without feeling weak or exposed. . . . When soldiers are denied these rituals they often tend to become emotionally disturbed. Unable to purge their guilt or be reassured that what they did was right, they turn their emotions inward. The effect can be devastating. Soldiers returning from the Vietnam War were victims of this kind of neglect. There were no longer troopship voyages where they could confide in their comrades. Instead, soldiers who had finished their tour of duty were flown home to arrive “back in the world” often within days, and sometimes hours of their last combat with the enemy. There were no fellow soldiers to meet them and to serve as a sympathetic sounding board for their experiences; no one to convince them of their own sanity.9

The church can be the place to hold together moral complexity in our dichotomous society. After all, in worship we both call upon the presence of God in joyful praise and then confess our sins; just before Holy Week, some churches do the liturgy of the Palms and the liturgy of the Passion in one Sunday. 

The prophet Isaiah, in a time of fear and violence, imagines an end to war and the celebration that would follow. This bold hope includes a ritual marking the decided end of fighting, a conclusion to the work of the warrior. The people praise God in the company of the warriors, 

You have multiplied the nation;
you have increased its joy;
they rejoice before you
as with joy at the harvest,
as they are glad when they divide the spoil (Isa. 9:3, ESV).

Christians most often hear this text around Christmas when we celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace and linger on our hope for a final and decisive end to the violence of this life. Isaiah too leads the community in imagining such an end of war and an enduring peace. His hymn of hopeful praise honors not only God’s presence but those whose hands and hearts are bloodied and wounded for having had to actually carry out the awful task of war. Now that the warriors have completed their duty of service, protecting the people of Israel, Isaiah declares: “All the boots of the tramping warriors and all the garments rolled in blood shall be burned as fuel for the fire” (9:5). This act of burning the garments of war ritualizes the end of the warrior’s fighting. The experienced warrior will likely long bear the face of a lion, carrying physical and emotional scars, but the community has also provided a clear ritual for the “expert with shield and spear” to lay down their weapons of war, to be purified by the priests, and to reenter the community. Furthermore, Isaiah reminds the community of their duty to be the ones who see the light in the darkness. Returning warriors need the community to help them see the light after the darkness they may have experienced. Many will carry burdensome questions about the reality or presence of God in a world where there also exist the atrocities of war. They may carry guilt and shame for what they did or did not do. Gabriel notes, 

Nations customarily measure the “costs of war” in dollars, lost production, or the number of soldiers killed or wounded. Rarely do military establishments attempt to measure the costs of war in terms of individual human suffering. Psychiatric breakdown remains one of the most costly items of war when expressed in human terms.10

America’s modern wars lack the process of cleansing warriors and creating a break between the battlefield and home. But the community of faith can respond, helping them reorient toward the light of God, helping them see God’s presence not only in the world of darkness but in their own lives, to see the world not only as they have seen it in war but as God intends it, where they are no longer required to fight. The community helps them see themselves as redeemed and on the way to healing by welcoming them home into the community of God, to remind them of the strong conviction of the Reformed tradition. Theologian Cynthia Rigby says, “God never abandons us, even in our sin. ‘In life and in death we belong to God’ we confess.”11 In war and in the aftermath, we belong to God. Nothing, not even war, can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

Vocati Ad Servitium: The Church’s Response

The church of Christ is uniquely called and equipped to help warriors reform their identity in Christ, to truly acknowledge their sacrifices, to express gratitude for their service which may include action or inaction that has caused moral injury, to confess sins that burden the soul, to grapple with guilt or shame, to help them accept forgiveness, and to become a new community where belonging and sacrificial love are core values, values that resound powerfully for veterans. Doing so within the context of the worshiping community, a community of honesty where trust is formed and there is a heroism of vulnerability, confirms that veterans are not alone in their healing. Rabbi Yonah of Girona, a thirteenth-century Spanish rabbi, wrote that “one of the most crucial and important things a person is called to do in life is exert himself to the full depths of his very soul on behalf of another person.”12 This is a value held at the core of many veterans’ being. Jesus said, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13, NRSV). This is something service members have come to know concretely. But without intentionality on the part of the church, there is no clear connection made between the values of the church and its religious practice and the experience of service members. We must make this an explicit commitment for the sake of the healing and integration of the service member and their families. It is also important to do for the church, which will deepen its own understanding of the realities facing our military community and benefit from the abundance of gifts of intense sacrificial love. In doing so, we help to deepen their understanding of belonging to each other and commitment to service that veterans can bring to our churches. 

Preparing for and returning from military service, as we have seen, are significant occasions in the lives of those who join the military as well as their families and communities of faith. Howard L. Rice and James C. Huffstutler write in Reformed Worship: “Significant occasions in the lives of individuals and communities require ritualizing in some way. Yet other than the Sunday bulletin, American Protestantism has provided almost no guidance for the ritual needs of people, and those bulletins may be little more than lists and announcements.”13 The church is called and empowered to provide for the spiritual needs of service members and veterans. “Because we bring who we are to worship, all of the situations in which we find ourselves—times of pain and times of celebration—are occasions for worship. A primary focus for the ministry of the church has always been providing care to all who need and seek it.”14

The church, with our sacraments and liturgy, is uniquely equipped with the resources to be on the frontlines of the healing process. The Confession of Sin gives space for the honest acknowledgment of personal guilt and the full-throated assurance of forgiveness offered either by an authority figure in the person of the pastor or in hearing it from the whole community’s shared acknowledgment of guilt and sin and powerful shared absolution: “In Jesus Christ, we are forgiven. Be at peace.” For the warrior to participate in the corporate Prayer of Confession there is an articulation of a guilt that they do not carry alone, just as their military service was in service to the whole community. John Calvin said of spiritual confession, “We should lay our infirmities on one another’s breasts, to receive among ourselves mutual counsel, mutual compassion and mutual consolation.”15 Within the Reformed tradition is a ritual that goes beyond many ancient rituals of purification for warriors by inviting the whole community to share in not only the assurance of forgiveness but the sharing of the burden of guilt, which should not be the warriors to carry alone. The Belhar Confession states, “We believe that God has entrusted the church with the message of reconciliation in and through Jesus Christ,” and the ritual of confession and forgiveness embodies the reconciliation of the warrior with the community through the grace of Jesus Christ.  

As previously noted, a Service of Healing and Wholeness, a Reaffirmation of Baptism, and a celebration of communion could all be adapted to provide a ritual for those who have experienced war or are leaving military service. This ritual could mark the beginning of a regular gathering together of veterans to share their experiences guided by a pastoral presence, much as Eleazar and the Levites did for Israel. These gatherings could cultivate trust, provide healing, bonding, and pathways to integration in the community of faith. This intentional group work could begin with a public ritual of Welcoming Home and honoring of service and sacrifice and could later include more private confession between service member and pastor or trusted veteran. These trusted guides can help younger veterans transition into larger society but also form bonds in the Christian community. In her beautiful book The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Mend Our Broken Hearts and World, Rabbi Sharon Brous notes, “This kind of community establishes spiritual anchors—regular opportunities for people to pray, sing, grieve, learn, and reflect together. It recognizes the collective power of people of good will working to help heal the broader society and prioritizes creating pathways for the holy work to be done. It invests in the creations of sacred space that fosters not inclusion, but belonging, intimacy and authenticity, love and accountability.”16

The Reformed church can provide a vital ministry to a new generation of warriors who are themselves preparing for future great wars. Now is the time for churches to also prepare our communities to receive them and examine our role in the healing of service members and veterans who need the gifts of the church. These gifts exist in the basic practices of our faith, within our ancient texts and theology, and within our rituals of healing, forgiveness, reconciliation, and reformation into the body of Christ, all that we may exhibit the kingdom of God. 

The following is one example of what such a ritual might look like, using elements of the Reformed liturgical tradition.

Liturgy for Members of the Military Leaving Active Duty or Returning from Deployments

Scripture Reading: Acts 2:42–47a, NIV

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people.

Leader: We honor and thank you for your service as a warrior, and we welcome you home.
All: We see you, we honor you, and we thank you.

Leader: We cannot know all that was required of you as you fulfilled your duties, but we do know you carry with you the weight of all you did and the memory of your comrades.
All: We see you, we honor you, and we are here for you.

Leader: We invite you to lay down your burdens before the Lord as you lay down the weapons and the armor of a warrior.
All: We see you, we honor you, and we will help you lay down your armor.

Service Member: I have done my duty with honor, courage, and commitment, and now I lay down my weapons and I remove my armor, with God’s help. 

The minister may pour water into the baptismal font. The service member is invited to sit or kneel. The minister lays hands on the service member. The minister may pour water and with water or oil make the sign of the cross on the forehead of the service member.

Leader: O Lord, as N. leaves behind his/her/their military service,
uphold him/her/them by your Holy Spirit.
Forgive him/her/them of his/her/their sins.
Place a clean heart and renew a right spirit within him/her/them.
Give him/her/them the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord,
the spirit of joy in your presence,
both now and forever.
All: Amen.

Leader: As you have laid down your military service,
will you take on a new calling in the name of Jesus?
Will you be a faithful member of this congregation,
share in its worship and mission
through your prayers and gifts,
your study and service,
and so fulfill your calling
to be a disciple of Jesus Christ?
SM: I will with God’s help.

Leader: Will you devote yourself to the church’s teaching and fellowship,
to the breaking of bread and the prayers?
SM: I will with God’s help. 

Leader: People of God, do you promise to welcome
N. fully into this fellowship
and to walk with him/her/them as he/she/they transition(s)
from military service to civilian life,
to share in the breaking of bread and prayer,
to accompany him/her/them in the journey
of finding belonging in the company of saints,
care for his/her/their emotional and spiritual needs,
and invite him/her/them into our community
to eat together with glad and sincere hearts?
All:  We will with God’s help.

Leader: The old life is gone, and a new life has begun.
Let us welcome our brother/sister/sibling
into this new life of fellowship and service.
All: With gratitude for your service
and with joy and thanksgiving
we welcome you to share with us
in the ministry of Christ,
for we are all one in him.

Leader: N., today you have publicly laid aside your calling as a warrior
in the company of this Christian community.
We have professed our commitment to accompany you
through the fullness of your journey
from warrior to civilian with open hearts,
willing to share in the burdens and struggles you may bear. 

Leader:  The peace of Christ be with you.
All:  And also with you. 

If part of Sunday worship, service may continue, or benediction may be said. 

Notes

1. David Grossman, On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society (New York: Open Road Integrated Media, 2014), 323.

2. Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried (New York: Mariner Books, 2009), 7.

3. Grossman, On Killing, 90.

4. The Second Helvetic Confession, Book of Confessions (Louisville, KY: Office of the General Assembly, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A., 2016), 5.135.

5. Grossman, On Killing, 272.

6. Shannon E. French, “Warrior Transitions: From Combat to Social Contract,” isme.tamu.edu/JSCOPE05/French05.html#:~:text=In%20ancient%20Rome%20%2C%20the%20Vestal,they%20could%20rejoin%20their%20tribes/.

7. Sonya B. Norman and Shira Maguen, U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/treat/cooccurring/moral_injury.asp/.

8. Grossman, On Killing, 284.

9. Richard Gabriel, No More Heroes: Madness and Psychiatry in War (New York: Hill and Wang, 1988), 156.

10. Gabriel, 156.

11. Cynthia L. Rigby, “Scandalous Presence: Incarnation and Trinity,” in Feminist and Womanist Essays in Reformed Dogmatics, ed. Amy Plantinga Pauw and Serene Jones (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 60. 

12. Rabbi Yonah of Girona, Shaarei Teshuvah 3:13, quoted by Sharon Brous, in The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Mend Our Broken Hearts and World (New York: Avery Publishing, 2024), 26.

13. Howard L. Rice and James C. Huffstutler, Reformed Worship (Louisville, KY: Geneva Press, 2001), 177.

14. Rice and Huffstutler, 180.

15. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T, McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), III.iv.6.

16. Brous, The Amen Effect, 42.

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