Loyal Subjects

Something I am trying to figure out is what it means to be a Christian in a country whose government is not Christian, and often anti-Christian. We are studying The Story of Christianity by Justo Gonzalez in Sunday School, and I found this paragraph interesting regarding the view of the early persecuted church:

Finally, Christians were accused of being subversive, for they refused to worship the emperor and thus destroyed the very fiber of society. The apologists answered that it was true that they refused to worship the emperor or any other creature, but that in spite of this they were loyal subjects of the Empire. What the emperor needs – they said – is not to be worshiped, but to be served; and those who serve him best are those who pray for him and for the Empire to the only true God.