William Willimon and Stanley Hauerwas: Being a Christian is not natural....

 
Being a Christian is not natural, not a by-product of being an American.  To be Christian is to be adopted by a new nation, the kingdom of God.  For the first time in our lives, those old labels and divisions that cause such grief - male/female, slave/free, rich/poor, New Jersey/Texas - are washed away, overcome, not by saying that such divisions don't mean anything, but rather by showing how they have been relativized, subordinated, and washed by our new citizenship.  Now, the only division that makes much difference to us is church/world.

--William Willimon and Stanley Hauerwas in Lord, Teach Us: The Lord's Prayer & the Christian Life