For Christians cannot be distinguished from the rest of the human race by country or language or customs. They do not live in cities of their own; they do not use a peculiar form of speech; they do not follow an eccentric manner of life. This doctrine of theirs has not been discovered by the ingenuity or deep thought of inquisitive men, nor do they put forward a merely human teaching, as some people do. Yet, although they live in Greek and barbarian cities alike, as each man's lot has been cast, and follow the customs of the country in clothing and food and other matters of daily living, at the same time they give proof of the remarkable and admittedly extraordinary constitution of their own commonwealth. They live in their own countries, but only as aliens. They have a share in everything as citizens, and endure everything as foreigners. Every foreign land is their fatherland, and yet for them every fatherland is a foreign land. They marry, like everyone else, and they beget children, but they do not cast out their offspring. They share their board with each other, but not their marriage bed. It is true that they are "in the flesh," but they do not live "according to the flesh." They busy themselves on earth, but their citizenship is in heaven. They obey the established laws, but in their own lives they go far beyond what the laws require.
“In a way that would be shocking to us, early Christians really were like people living in a foreign country. The spirit of their surrounding culture was alien to what they had now come to believe. But notice how they responded. They criticized their culture where it went astray, as we've seen in the Letter's harsh words for idolatry. But they didn't abandon or retire from the world. They didn't build fortress enclaves. They didn't manufacture their own culture or invent their own language. They took elements from the surrounding society and "baptized" them with a new spirit and a new way of living.
So again, the essential thing for the earliest Christians was not having a unique culture that communicated the faith. Rather, it was taking elements from the wider society and making them Christian. Notice, too, that they didn't condemn pagan culture root and branch, but sought out those aspects of society they might make obedient to Christ (see 2 Cor 10:5).
Yet for all their adaptability, for all their efforts to follow the customs of their countries, something very different persisted about Christians: They knew, and deeply believed, that their primary citizenship was in heaven. They would obey earthly rulers whenever possible. But their highest loyalty belonged to the King of Kings. They would render unto Caesar the things that were Caesar's. But they never forgot that they themselves belonged to God. They understood that imitating Christ meant going against the grain.”
-Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, Strangers in a Strange Land: Living the Catholic Faith in a Post-Christian World
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