The following message from Dean L. Gregory Jones was emailed to Divinity School faculty, staff and students Sunday morning.

Dear Colleagues:

We in the Duke Divinity School community join with our Jewish brothers and sisters in mourning the loss of those murdered in the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. We are grieved, and we are also outraged by this horrifying act of violence—especially in a place presumed to be both sacred and a place of safety. We also protest the continuing evil of anti-Semitism, and we call on all people to renounce and repent of hatred in any form.

We long for the day when there will be no more violence, no more killing. We pray that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Joseph, the God of Miriam and Deborah, will embrace all those families who lost loved ones in this massacre, and we pray for all those this day who are bewildered by yet one more senseless and pre-meditated act of violence that afflicts our land.

This day, we also pray that God will empower all of us to undertake the work of tikkun olam, “repairers of the world.” May it be so.

Grace and Peace,

Dr. L. Gregory Jones
Dean, Duke Divinity School