When Gregory Jones, dean of Duke University's Divinity School, visited Roanoke in March for a speaking engagement on the importance of forgiveness in today's world, he sat down for an interivew in which he fielded this question, among others:

How is it possible for the family or friends of someone murdered to forgive? For example, in the case of those grieving after the mass murder at Virginia Tech in April 2007?

Jones: It's perfectly ok for them not to want to do so in the short term. We need to honor peoples' grief, their anger, the devastation they feel that a loved one was unjustly killed.

And that will lead to all sorts of complicated feelings and reactions. We should not press people the way we sometimes do immediately after a tragedy, with, 'Well, have you forgiven them?' That's an unfair burden to put on people.

For more of the Gregory Jones interview, please see the next print version of the Focus column on Faith on page 2 of the Virginia section on Saturday, April 19.

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• Posted by Rob Johnson in Religion
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