Today we read in our press that Senator Herron, our Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, has described our treatment of our indigenous peoples as ‘benign in intent’. He has used that very phrase in the Coalition Federal Government’s submission to a Senate Inquiry into the Stolen Generations. But the words of Rev. John Saunders, who preached in the Baptist Chapel, Bathurst Street, Melbourne on 14 October 1838, suggest that at least some churchmen were well aware of its profoundly unjust intent.

Rev. Saunders’ performance is passionate and closely argued. He sets out a theological principle and argues its consequences in an Australian context in the following way:

True, it does read a bit like an eternal system of mandatory sentencing, and these days we interpret scriptures about punishment alongside others concerning mercy, but there is something refreshing and stimulating about Saunders’ preaching. Not many modern sermons present such a meaty and uncompromising insistence on social justice for our indigenous peoples.

Looking back, I try and imagine the congregation’s response. How could they have resisted the second claim that indigenous people are human beings, even if they rejected the likelihood of the hellfire and brimstone? And as Henry Reynolds has pointed out there were many others who were expressing a similar ‘whispering’ in their ‘hearts’, beginning right back in the 1820s. But the concerns of these socially aware and courageous critics were not heard sufficiently to stop our country’s cruel attempt to destroy a whole indigenous nation. This brings us to the important question: if nothing came of it, what was the point of Rev. Saunders’ rousing bid for justice?

The answer I think lies in an understanding of the role of prophecy. A British theologian, Adrian Hastings, published a collection of his sermons in 1995 entitled, The Shaping of Prophecy. Prophecy is defined as

… two essential elements. The first is a clear, rational and sophisticated understanding of the world; an understanding historical, sociological and psychological. The second is fidelity to a tradition, a faith, a shared discourse through which one speaks; not a rigid, uncritical fidelity, but the acceptance of a language and culture of meaning and value.

I could not think of a better description of Saunders’ sermon. In one of his chapters Hastings discusses the work of that great theologian and churchman, William Temple whom he quotes as saying about William Wilberforce, the anti-slavery campaigner who did not live to see legislation for the abolition of slavery passed,

Remember Wilberforce and the early Abolitionists; remember the twelve Apostles and the Company gathered about them… As we look forwards, we peer into darkness, and none can say with certainty what course the true progress of the future should follow. But as we look back the truth is marked by beacon lights, which are the lives of saints and pioneers, and these in their turn are not originators of light but rather reflectors which give light to us because themselves they are turned towards the source of light…

I could not have put it any better myself. Saunders and his ilk may not have had the impact they sought in the 1830s, but now they have become ‘beacon lights’ by which church leaders and social justice workers can see the truth. Reading Saunders’ words makes me humble, recognising that none of us working for justice is its originator, and that it is only by continuing to turn toward the same light as he did, that we can hope to reflect it, perhaps becoming beacon lights ourselves for generations to come.

Rev. Tim Costello is President of the Baptist Union of Australia.