Last week, I talked about the year 1492.  The year I cite today, 1619, is equally pivotal--and flowed out of 1492.  1619 is the year that the first African slaves arrived in the "New" World.  It was the year that marked the beginning of the lengthy and singularly horrendous white American practice of enslaving their fellow human beings, beings who, like they, were made in the image of God, for, and only for, economic gain.  Some historians have noted that the Americans who enslaved Africans did so because they were "lazy."  They didn't want to toil in the cotton fields, they didn't want to labor in the humidity and heat.  They didn't want to work.


     Oddly enough, however, they at the same time passed laws mandating jail terms for people who failed to attend church twice on Sunday!  One wonders at the theological disconnect:  what were they thinking?  How can one insist that a person must attend church twice on Sunday while at the same time forcing millions of people into lives of slavery?

     Such hypocrisy makes one quiver; it makes one weep.  Imagine,however, what it does to the heart of God.