Schmemann on Baptism

"Our belonging, our loyalty to anything in 'this world' - be it State, nation, family, culture or any other 'value' - is valid only inasmuch as it does not contradict or mutilate our primary loyalty and 'syntaxis' to the Kingdom of Christ. In the light of that Kingdom no other loyalty is absolute, none can claim our unconditional obedience, none is the 'lord' of our life. To remember this is especially important now when not only the 'world' but even Christians themselves so often absolutize their earthly values - national, ethnic, political, cultural - making them the criterion of their Christian fiath, rather than subordinating them to the only absolute oath: the one they took on the day of their Baptism, of their 'enrollment' in the ranks of those for whom Christ is the only King and Lord" (Schmemann Of Water and the Spirit 32).