The original Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives was created in 2001 under Bush. While the office had a number of goals, its major purpose was to make grants to religious organizations providing social services at a state and local level. The effort was controversial: Critics, including Mark Chaves at Duke University, argued that the program was based on “false assumptions” about the degree to which faith groups can provide a “meaningful alternative” to government social services.

Under Obama, the focus—and the name—changed. The Democratic president redirected his new Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships to concentrate on partnerships with religious communities; it operated as the conduit between clergy and the White House. The office hit some major bumps, however, as the Obama administration pushed issues like the contraceptive requirement in the Affordable Care Act, incensing religious leaders and placing Obama’s faith office in the awkward position of having to defend a policy its staffers disagreed with.

Trump’s new office arrives in a radically different context, but with similarly complicated conditions. Religion has played a major symbolic role in Trump’s first year and a half in office. Last year around this time, the president signed another executive order that dealt with political speech in churches and the legal aftereffects of the contraceptive mandate in the Affordable Care Act. He gave the commencement address at Liberty University, one of the largest Christian schools in the country. He has routinely made speeches like the one he gave on Thursday, the National Day of Prayer: “Our country was founded on prayer, our communities are sustained by prayer, and our nation will be renewed by hard work, a lot of intelligence, and prayer,” the president said. “Prayer changes hearts and transforms lives. It uplifts the soul, inspires action, and unites us all as one nation under God.”

Not all religious groups feel empowered under Trump, however. Religious minorities, including Muslims, Hindus, and Jews, are increasingly concerned about hate crimes and discrimination, which some say are inflamed by the country’s toxic political environment. The Supreme Court is currently considering the third iteration of Trump’s ban on immigrants from a number of majority-Muslim countries, which challengers say is discriminatory against Muslims. And many black and Hispanic clergy have expressed alarm at Trump’s policies on a range of issues that affect their communities, from policing to immigration.

The new office also comes amid new revelations about Trump’s past conduct. In recent weeks, federal investigators have been exploring the possibility that Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, made potentially illegal hush-money payments to a porn star who goes by the stage name Stormy Daniels, who claimed to have had a consensual affair with Trump in the months after his wife gave birth to the couple’s son, Barron.