Dear Friends:

The clergy, staff, and congregants of the Memorial Church of Harvard University sit in sorrow and solidarity with our Muslim siblings. Our hearts ache and our souls lament for the dozens of precious lives murdered by a gunman in New Zealand. All words seem cliché and trite. That this vicious attack occurred within a place of prayer and worship only further negates the customary, “our thoughts and prayers are with you.”

Nevertheless, pray, we must. Love, we must. An ethic of love is the only formidable force against hate, intolerance, and injustice. We...