Best-selling Christian author Max Lucado had never commented on this year's U.S. presidential campaign much less endorse or reject certain candidates—until now.
Breaking his silence, the man known as "America's Pastor" said he felt compelled to air his views on the election campaign because one presidential candidate, Donald Trump, has changed his attitude toward pastoral involvement in politics, according to the Gospel Herald.
In a recent blog post, Lucado said Trump's "antics and insensitivities wouldn't even be acceptable even for a middle school student body election."
"The leading candidate to be the next leader of the free world would not pass my decency interview. I'd send him away. I'd tell my daughter to stay home. I wouldn't entrust her to his care," wrote Lucado, the lead pastor at Oak Hills Church in San Antonio, Texas.
The pastor said his concern is not about government policies or strategies that the candidates espouse.
What worries him most, he said, is the "public derision of people" by a candidate who calls himself a Christian.
"It would be none of my business, I would have absolutely no right to speak up, except that he repeatedly brandishes the Bible and calls himself a Christian," Lucado told Christianity Today.
"If he's [Trump] going to call himself a Christian one day and call someone a bimbo the next, or make fun of somebody's menstrual cycle, it's just beyond reason to me," he said.
"Trump ridiculed a war hero. He made fun of a disabled reporter. He referred to the former first lady, Barbara Bush as 'mommy,' and belittled Jeb Bush for bringing her on the campaign trail. He routinely calls people 'stupid,' 'loser,' and 'dummy.' These were not off-line, backstage, overheard, not-to-be-repeated comments. They were publicly and intentionally tweeted, recorded, and presented," Lucado said.
He said he couldn't imagine how Trump could claim to be a Christian one moment and then turn around and say he had "never asked God for forgiveness."
"I'm just shaking my head going, 'How does that work?' Does a swimmer say, 'I've never gotten wet?' Does a musician say, 'I've never sang a song?' How does a person claim to be a Christian and never need to ask for forgiveness?" Lucado wondered.
