We have it much easier than the Rev. John Saunders had it in 1838, and yet we seem to be less sensitive, less prophetic, less obedient, and less courageous. Although we know much more about Aboriginal history and we are much more aware of and informed about human rights, the occasions are few when a Baptist leader addresses the responsibility of the church to the indigenous people of Australia?

John Saunders could not have known about modern human rights. They only came into being after the barbarisms of the Second World War when the United Nations were founded (1945), and when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was proclaimed (1948) as the "common standard of achievement for all people and all nations". Saunders speaks of "natural rights" and "civil rights". He probably knew about the French and the American Revolutions with their Declaration of Independence (1776), their Bill of Rights (1791), and their Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789). But the talk of human rights that we find in the media every day only goes back to the 1950's.

The need of the situation, a conscience that was informed by the story of Jesus, and the obedience to follow the voice of conscience, makes John Saunders' sermon worthy to be remembered, and inter-related with modern human rights.

1. Saunders speaks of "the duty of the colonists towards the Aboriginal natives". Article 1 of the UDHR does not only say that "all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights", but it also emphasises that all human beings are "endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood." While the Human Rights movement faces a crisis of ontology, Saunders is clear: The ultimate tribunal for human morality is God. God's word guides the human conscience into truth. And response to that truth includes a duty to implement what is perceived to be true. Since the indigenous people were treated unjustly, therefore repentance and a commitment to justice are required. Otherwise the judgment of God can be expected.

2. Saunders knows and emphasises that Aborigines are human beings. That may sound strange today, but it was not until 1967 that the full and equal humanity of the indigenous people was recognised. Saunders argues that Aborigines are "neither monkey, ape, or baboon", but that they have their rightful place in the human family. They therefore are "invested with all the natural rights which belong to humanity." What a grand anticipation of what we call Human Rights today!

The UDHR speaks of the "inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family" (Preamble) and declares:
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. (§1)

Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. (§2). Any resemblance of racism or ethnic and cultural inferiority in the hearts and heads of people or in the law of the land are a denial of human dignity.

3. Saunders designates the Aborigines as "the original proprietors of the soil". No terra nullius for a conscience ( in 1838! ( that was sensitive toward the word of God! "It is not just to say that the natives had no notion of property, and therefore we could not rob them of that which they did not possess; for accurate information shews that each tribe had its distinct locality, and each superior person in the tribe a portion of this district. From these their hunting ground, they have been individually and collectively dispossessed."

It took the law courts over 150 years to catch up with that insight. The fact that Aboriginal people have land rights is still controversial. Pastoralists turn to the courts rather than converse with the Aboriginal people.

Both Human Rights Covenants, the "International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights" and the "International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights" (both adopted 1966, ratified 1976) have the same Article 1: "All peoples have the right to self-determination" and "All people may, for their own ends, freely dispose of their natural wealth and resources".

"Sovereignty" and "self-determination" may be emotive words because they allow friend and foe to read their own contents into them. But human dignity needs language, culture, art, literature, and rules. All of us need an ethos that feeds us and to which we contribute. It has been a terrible denial of human dignity that many Aboriginal people, often in homes run by Christian missions, were denied to speak their language and practice their culture.

4. Saunders does not remain abstract, but he becomes concrete. "We are guilty!" Rather than blessing "the original possessor of the wild", as it would have been becoming of a "Christian nation", we have robbed them, invaded their "territory and took possession of the soil; "we have brutalised them, ... brought the art of intoxication to them ... taught them new lessons in fraud, dishonesty, and theft." Indeed, "we have shed their blood," we have used "the musket, and the bayonet and the sword, and the poisoned damper," "to exterminate the blacks".

This sounds like a litany of the denial of human rights climaxing in the charge of genocide. "The spot of blood is upon us, the blood of the poor and the defenceless, the blood of the men we wronged before we slew, and too, too often, a hundred times too often innocent blood. We are guilty here."

The UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948) which Australia ratified in 1949 defines genocide as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) killing members of the group; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group." (Article II).

5. Saunders does not call for compassion, but for justice! Human rights are rights for people to claim. They are described as "inherent" or "endowed" in order to say that they are not granted by any human or historical institution. They are part of each person's humanity. They are universal and indivisible. The state and any other institution cannot give them and cannot take them away. It is their noble duty to recognise them and implement them.

6. And Saunders supplies us with a theological vision to appreciate and appropriate Human Rights. He does not only say that justice is grounded in God, but he actually claims that the outworking of justice is part of God's providence. While in the story of Jesus, God makes known what God requires of us, God's Spirit is at work everywhere where human life is made human.

7. While in our modern individualistic culture, people have lost any sense of history, lost any sense of being woven into a history of pride and shame, and therefore only want to accept responsibility for what they themselves have done or failed to do, Saunders knew that such stance is an illusion. It is unreal. He says that "the whole colony is answerable" for "our injustice to the Aborigines." Some by their sins of commission and others by their sins of omission. It is not only the perpetrators of injustice who are guilty. It is also those who looked away, who profited and who kept quiet.

That is why today the German people are still paying billions of reparation to the Jewish people and why they are building a massive monument in the middle of Berlin: "lest we forget!". We are placed into a certain country with its generational successions. And just as we remember and share in events that make us proud of our past ( think of "ANZAC" and "Gallipoli" ( so we must also share and accept responsibilities for events of shame. One is meaningless without the other.

8. What needs to be done? The ethos of Saunders' sermon is as relevant now as it was then. On the spiritual level we are called to repentance and prayer. On the moral level, we must commit ourselves to the struggle for justice for the indigenous people: "repentance supposes reformation, and where injuries have been inflicted it involves recompense". On the political level "wholesome regulations", educational programs for a "a sound public opinion" and a change of consciousness with the resulting structures for "good understanding with the Aboriginal natives" is called for. Proper restitution and compensation will be the test of credibility. "It is our duty to recompense the Aborigines to the extent we have injured them. .... We are required to protect the natives from further aggression, and shed upon them every blessing within our power."

Rev. John Saunders' sermon from that Sunday in 1838 serves as an eloquent reminder that the church does not only have a priestly, but also a prophetic ministry to the nation.