Wiley Drake
A former officer in the Southern Baptist Convention who was on the ballot in California as Alan Keyes’ running mate in 2008 this time around is offering his services to GOP frontrunner Donald Trump.
Wiley Drake, pastor of the First Southern Baptist Church of Buena Park, Calif., told the Sacramento Bee an unnamed staff member of the Trump campaign reached out to him and said, “Donald might ask you to be his running mate.”
Drake, elected in 2006 as second vice president of the nation’s largest faith group behind Roman Catholics, said if asked he would oblige. Drake, who filed a high-profile “birther” lawsuit challenging Barack Obama’s presidency, said Trump is a fellow skeptic of Obama’s birth records but needs counsel because he isn’t “spiritually mature enough to be a president.”
“He sort of has the concept, ‘I have always been a Christian. I was born a Christian’ and that of course is contrary not only to evangelicals, but most importantly it’s contrary to the word of God,” Drake said. “I have not heard Mr. Trump say ‘I personally invited Jesus into my heart and into my life and therefore he’s my savior.’”
Drake, who ran for vice president with the American Independent Party, announced last fall he is running for president without any party affiliation.
“The Democrats have done a lot of damage, but the Republicans have done almost as much,” Drake told the Gospel Herald. “Party politics have ruined this country. It’s time we got back to our history of ministers of the Gospel running for office without a party.”
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