Is this church powerful? Yes, in Christ, it is the most powerful force in the cosmos, and its power is never more visible than when it is weak.

It was poignant to read the transcript of Donald Trump’s remarks to evangelicals in New York. Christian leaders asked some good questions, but as I read the transcript, a sense of sadness took hold of me. The gathered group of people had labored hard to strengthen America. Now, in dark times, many hoped hard for indications from Trump that he might join them in defending the permanent things.

Opinions will vary as to the clarity and sincerity of his remarks. I was not present in the room. But as I read multiple Trumpian tangents to clear questions, I was struck by two things. First, Trump either does not know what religious liberty is or does not think much about it. His answers to such queries elicited some remarkable replies, including a 1200-word answer on religious liberty in the military that covered multiple American campaigns, but little about religious liberty. I am all for a strong armed forces, but I am not heartened by the lack of clarity in these words.

As on many issues, I am left asking: Who is Donald Trump? I genuinely do not know—but much of what I see unsettles me.

Second, and more significantly, I am struck afresh by the changed position of Christianity in the American public square. Some of Trump’s statements played on the old evangelical desire for cultural dominance, and some of them drew applause. But that applause will not last. A secularizing culture is doing well at drowning it out.

In such circumstances, when marriage is changed and transgender policies are remaking public spaces, evangelicals need to do a few things. First, we need to keep making our case with truth and love in the halls of power. We should never retreat, and we should never withdraw. At the state level, there are many positive gains that have been made in recent years on the life issue, for example. We must avoid a unidirectional narrative of our culture that leads to disenfranchisement and despair, for it does not tell the whole truth. We cannot disengage.

But we must also see this at present: the church may not win back massive political power. If true, then God will be opening our eyes to understand that we are here not for political domination, but to catch the suffering innocents that our barbarian first-world neighbors have dropped.

Nothing is certain. Even our right to act in mercy could be taken away. But as long as our freedoms survive, the modern church must emulate the early church. By contrast, the early church had few rights in its ancient context. It suffered waves of persecution, with many believers having little recourse to common justice. Yet the church became known for saving “exposed” infants, for caring for sick people in times of plague, for welcoming the dregs of society cast off by the elites.

So may it be in our time. America today is much like Rome then. We are led by narcissistic elites who think themselves superior, morally and otherwise, to us. In performative terms, they may well be right. But the morality and worldview of the elites is not advanced; it is pagan, and degenerate. For many, the body is an object of worship; sexuality is unbounded; life, especially the life of the unwanted, is devalued and cast aside.

The church must catch them. As I have said elsewhere, we must recommit ourselves to rescuing the abandoned and loving the unloved. We may think to ourselves upon hearing this, Sure. That’s good. But we might then move on to other things, yearning for public power, hungry for cultural triumph, lost in a world of dreams. Here’s what we must likely recognize: the glory days, such as they were, are not coming back. But we are here. We are alive. We are agents of mercy empowered by Christ. We have the opportunity, every day we live, to do good, preposterous good.

The early church suffered and struggled in political terms. For centuries, it lived under threat of destruction. But the early church never let its political impotence rob it of spiritual vitality and ethical purpose. The same must be true for the modern church. Let us be salt and light; let us pray for kings; let us use what rights we have as Paul did. Let us care for widows and orphans. Let us feed the hungry and heal the sick.

Let us seek to leave our mark on history. But much as we pray for our nation’s health, let us remember that such a mark may not look like political victory. It may look very much like a pilgrim church, an alien people, who amidst their trials and challenges ventured out into the forests far from the centers of power and brought back the wanderer, welcomed the cast-off, and scooped up the Down Syndrome baby floating by in a basket in the river.

If this is who we are, we will look very strange indeed in our bronzed, whitened, status-snatching, image-curating society. Larger families will look ungainly and weird. Adopted children will be disdained (nobody is more nativist than an impressive secularist when it comes to family composition). Disabled family members will seem a nuisance. Multiethnic, multi-class churches will seem far less polished, less curated, than your average coastal brunch spot, brimming with the young and the airbrushed. The church will not seem glamorous; it will not look high-flown. It will seem positively ordinary, almost dull.

And that is when the church most shines. The elderly given meals by the young. Little kids with cleft palates, happiness glowing in their eyes as they play with their loving friends. Families of different ethnicities, the kids treating one another like what they are: brother and sister. Fathers bending over backwards to provide and lead, collapsing exhausted from a day spent pouring out for their family and pouring out into their family. Mothers with accomplished pedigrees who give it all up to make PBJs, and many memories, with little ones who accordingly think Mom is what goodness looks like. Pastors who give up the speaking circuit to be with dying saints, counsel the lonely, disciple young men, and preach the Word to a local body. Single men and women who choose holiness and choose Christ, marveling at the lived wonder of the church, a family greater than any ever known.

Is this church impressive? No, the world despises it, and seeks because of its alienness and its savor of life to destroy it.

Is this church powerful? Yes, in Christ, it is the most powerful force in the cosmos, and its power is never more visible than when it is weak.