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Thousands of children the world over are stuck without Malaysian citizenship, innocent victims of archaic, sexist laws which deny Malaysian women the rights men have to automatically confer citizenship to offspring born abroad. For over six decades, little’s been done to make things right.
Read on.
A Citizen of Heaven By Birth
“When they had tied him up with thongs, Paul asked the centurion who stood by, “Is it lawful for you to scourge a man who is a Roman, and not found guilty?” When the centurion heard it, he went to the commanding officer and told him, “Watch what you are about to do, for this man is a Roman!” The commanding officer came and asked him, “Tell me, are you a Roman?” He said, “Yes.” The commanding officer answered, “I bought my citizenship for a great price.” Paul said, “But I was born a Roman.” Immediately those who were about to examine him departed from him, and the commanding officer also was afraid when he realized that he was a Roman, because he had bound him.” (Acts 22:25-29 WEB)
Citizenship has its privileges. Roman citizens were not allowed to be scourged without first being granted a trial.
When there are laws in place regarding your citizenship, your enemies are afraid to lay their hands on you.
The commanding officer who interrogated Paul bought his citizenship for a great price, showing how valuable and exclusive it is.
However having bought his citizenship, it means that he was not really a Roman—only legally, but it can still be disputed since he wasn’t born a Roman.
But Paul was born a Roman, and what can be more legitimate than being born as a citizen?
Dear child of God, through the Holy Spirit, you have been born into God’s own family. You are a citizen of Heaven and you’re a child of the royal family!
You didn’t need to purchase your citizenship because Jesus paid the great price for it—a price you cannot afford.
As a citizen of Heaven, demons tremble in fear and can’t attack you head on because you have many powerful angels guarding you in all your ways.
Through Jesus’ finished work at the cross, you have received the righteousness of God so you qualify for divine protection, and have been equipped with spiritual gifts and authority over your spiritual enemies.
Nothing is more scary to demons than a child of God who knows and believes who he is and what he has in Christ.
It’s like coming face to face with Jesus Himself, and we know what happened when Jesus came against the legion of demons.
A Roman legion is a group of approximately 6000 soldiers.
With one word “Go”, He cast all 6000 them out of the demoniac.
That kind of authority is yours because you are in Christ Jesus.
“For our citizenship is in heaven, from where we also wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ;” (Philippians 3:20 WEB)
As you go forth this week, be conscious that your citizenship is in Heaven. You’re physically in this world but you’re not limited by natural laws like the sons of Adam—you have access to your kingdom’s resources. Heavenly citizenship has its perks!
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來看看2015 NYU鼓勵畢業生成為怎樣的一個社會公民！
https://www.facebook.com/jiangeng.chiou/videos/887575711280480/
這是一所偉大學校在畢業典禮上對他們學生的期勉。不是建立在身分地位金錢剝削冷感上的成功，而是"A noncomformist, an intellectual, a doer and natural-born activists"。身為暴民我真的在陽光普照的洋基球場哭了出來。
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我知道你們對社會充滿深切的關心，我知道你們有創造力、想像力、直率，你們是不墨守成規的知識分子、實踐家以及天生的社運份子。......因此在這個美好的慶典場合，我不會讓你們卸下作為一個公民的義務。相反的，我鼓勵你們孕育心中那股永恆的焦慮，不滿於民主運行的不完美，那股我必須作些什麼的不適感。
而對於改善民主體制的使命感，正是公民責任的精隨，尤其是為了那些社會邊緣最需要幫助的人。
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演講影片（82:00 ~ 97:45）：
http://www.nyu.edu/…/events-trad…/commencement/web-cast.html
逐字稿節錄：
So today is a day of celebration. And yet, because you are graduates of this great institution, I know that you are aware that out there – just outside the ring of celebration, outside the cushion of today’s excitement lies a more sobering reality. And while I promise not to kill the joy of your day, I want to say a few words about the challenges out there in the world you will rejoin after today’s celebrations. I feel comfortable doing so, because by virtue of you being an NYU graduate, I know that you are someone who is concerned with the world. I know that you are creative, imaginative, bold, a nonconformist, an intellectual, a doer and natural-born activist. I know that you take your citizenshipobligations seriously. By citizenship I do not refer to your legal status. I mean your responsibility to whatever community you belong – whether it’s the American community or the human community. You take seriously your responsibility to work for peace and justice, to protect and nurture opportunity and equality.
Since last August, I have found myself repeating under my breath from the time-to-time a line from a document I read in the 10th grade in my American Literature course at Hillcrest High School in Queens. I haven’t thought much about this text since that 10th grade class in 1976, but after unrest broke out in Ferguson, Missouri last summer.... After Eric Garner was killed here in New York, after I saw the execution of Walter Scott in North Charleston, South Carolina, and yes after I learned early one Saturday night that two police officers were killed while on duty in Brooklyn, after I watched young people in my adopted city of Baltimore unleash frustration after years of neglect and dislocation – I found myself whispering the opening lines written by Thomas Paine in his pamphlet of the American Revolution: “these are the times that try men’s souls.” Yes, these are the times that try men’s... and women’s souls.
The past nine months have been trying indeed. They have challenged the very soul of our nation such that we cannot pretend even as are here filled with the excitement of this day that there are not deep challenges awaiting us. We cannot pretend that all is right in our land. And we should not. We can suspend reality for a few hours, maybe a few days, but then we must return to it.
The challenges we face are both personal and national. Some of you are excited today, but have no idea how you will manage the debt that you have accumulated to receive this wonderful education. Most of you have enjoyed the privilege of attending this great university and living in New York City. But for most of you, if you lived “on campus” at NYU, this will be the last time that you will be able to afford to live in Manhattan. Still others of you wonder about whether you will be able to find a job in your chosen field, one that provides maternity and paternity leave, and that will not discriminate against you for being gay or lesbian or transgender. Some of you despite this terrific education and having found a good job will find the veneer of success stripped away, as you are stopped on the street or in your car, even though you haven’t broken any laws and you are wearing a suit because, you are told, you “look like” a suspect in a robbery. Still others of you are struggling even now to take care of elderly parents who have little or no savings, or you cannot imagine how you will save enough to send your now infant son or daughter to NYU.
Many of you are doing just fine. But you recognize and accept willingly your obligation to concern yourself with the state of our democracy. You cannot ignore that there are an increasing number of states where there are hundreds of thousands of voters do not have the newly required identification demanded by ever-increasingly stringent voter id laws. You have never been to prison, nor has anyone you know. But you know that the prison population of our country has reached unsustainable and shameful proportions. You know that incarcerating 2 million people is a sign of American failure, not American success. You know that violent crimes levels are today as low as they were in the 1960s, and yet our prison population is 8 times the size it was in the 1960s.
You are living in a nation of staggering income inequality and of revived and entrenched racial segregation.
You saw the video of Eric Garner ‘s death or you saw Walter Scott running for his life and being shot like prey in North Charleston, South Carolina and you feel deeply, you know without question that our democracy faces challenges that demand your engagement, your response.
You have seen all of these things, worried over these things. You have felt the crisis that is enveloping us, the crisis of confidence in the rule of law, in our justice system, and you are wondering what your role must be. And you are right to do so. It is our citizenship obligation to engage the issues of our day. To work for peace. To demand justice but also to fight for beauty, civility, privacy, and dignity for everyone.
And so on the beautiful day of celebration, I will not relieve you of the obligations of citizenship. In fact, to the contrary, I encourage you to nurture that niggling worry, that sense of dissatisfaction, that inability to settle and to be content with the deep imperfections of our democracy. I encourage your discomfort, your sense that you must do something, you must contribute, that you must make your voice heard. That is the essence of citizenship -- that bone deep sense of obligation to improve our democracy – to improve it especially for those who are most marginalized and most in need.
And you, my beloved NYU graduates, you willfind your own way to make your contribution. You will teach young people. You will participate in government. You will make meaningful art and help those without access to see it, hear it, dance it, and sing it. You will fight for the right of children to have a childhood free from violence. You will commit yourself to finding the cure to a terrible disease, or to making treatment accessible to those who lack it. You will create opportunities for good jobs, you will treat your own employees humanely. You will fight passionately to protect our precious natural environment. You will stand against religious intolerance. You will do the hard work of communicating with those who disagree with you – of reviving the lost art of civil discourse in which you respect the humanity of the person with whom you are in conflict.
-- Sherrilyn Ifill, LDF President and Director-Counsel, 2015 NYU Commencement.
