Couple O' Nukes: Self-Improvement For Mental Health, Addiction, Fitness, & Faith · Mr. Whiskey

Why Trauma Breaks Faith And How God Restores It With Dr. Larry Brant

·49 min·3 clips

Moral injury can make people feel "unlovable," "unforgivable," and "infected with evil."

1. Couple O' Nukes: Self-Improvement For Mental Health, Addiction, Fitness, & Faith focuses this episode on military chaplaincy, moral injury, and faith restoration with Dr. Larry Brant. 2. Dr. Larry Brant appears as the guest, a Navy chaplain and author whose work in police, fire, hospital, and military settings shapes the discussion. 3. The episode asks how trauma breaks faith and what God, chaplains, and communities can do to restore people after moral injury. 4. Brant says he grew up in the St. Louis area, went to Murray State University in Western Kentucky, and married Tammy after college. 5. He explains that he spent about 25 years in church ministry after earning a master’s in church music at Southern Seminary in Louisville. 6. A 2002 church posting in Lincoln, Nebraska led him into volunteer police and fire chaplaincy, where he supervised about 25 volunteer chaplains. 7. Brant says a 2007 denominational training conference in Hawaii changed his direction toward Navy chaplaincy. 8. He describes arguing against the call by citing his age, his degrees, and his weight, then says his wife named the same calling in the hotel room. 9. He says he enrolled at Luther Rice Seminary, joined the YMCA, and lost 110 pounds in about a year and a half. 10. Brant recounts entering the Navy at 45, receiving an eye waiver and age waiver, then being sent to 2nd Marine Division at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. 11. He says he later served in Afghanistan with 3rd Battalion, 8th Marines and then moved through Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard assignments for 16 years. 12. Brant also says he worked as command chaplain at Naval Hospital San Diego, known as Balboa, during the height of COVID. 13. He estimates that hospital was losing about one patient a day, which left families and healthcare workers questioning what they were doing. 14. Brant distinguishes PTSD from moral injury by saying moral injury comes from actions or failures that violate moral, ethical, and spiritual convictions. 15. He says moral injury can lead to guilt, shame, self-isolation, fear of infecting others with evil, and self-medication with alcohol or drugs. 16. He describes Safe Talk and Assist from LivingWorks in Calgary, Alberta, and says he has been a master facilitator for 13 years. 17. He says Assist uses the PAL model, Pathway for Assisting Life, and can be done face to face, by phone, or by text. 18. Brant describes an eight-week group at 29 Palms that uses a workbook, homework, and shared stories to help people with PTSD or moral injury. 19. The conversation is interview-based, personal, and practical, with Brant mixing military stories, Scripture, and pastoral language. 20. People interested in military chaplaincy, suicide intervention, and faith-based trauma care will get the most from it; listeners wanting a light entertainment episode may skip it.

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