5th December 2025

“Christians are not distinguished from the rest of mankind either in locality or in speech or in customs. For they dwell not somewhere in cities of their own, neither do they use some different language, nor practise an extraordinary kind of life. Nor again do they possess any invention discovered by any intelligence or study of ingenious men, nor are they masters of any human dogma as some are.

“But while they dwell in cities of Greeks and barbarians as the lot of each is cast, and follow the native customs in dress and food and the other arrangements of life, yet the constitution of their own citizenship, which they set forth, is marvellous, and confessedly contradicts expectation. They dwell in their own countries, but only as sojourners; they bear their share in all things as citizens, and they endure all hardships as strangers. Every foreign country is a fatherland to them, and every fatherland is foreign.”

This letter to someone called Diognetus was penned by an unknown Christian in the second century. Already, Christians were having to sort out where their primary allegiance lay. To the Roman Empire? To their particular countries with their distinctive languages and custom? Or their city or village, tribe or family?

“Jesus is Lord” was the early Christian watchword. Their citizenship was in heaven, and this gave them a Spirit-filled freedom wherever birth, work or migration had placed them, to seek the welfare of their neighbours wherever for the time being they happened to live, and to respect all other countries on earth that people called “home”. Promoters of “Christian nationalism” today, take note!

Keith Clements