Hillary Clinton's 'disregard' for evangelicals contributed to loss, says Obama faith adviser

The former faith adviser to U.S. President Barack Obama said that Hillary Clinton's lack of engagement with faith communities contributed to her loss in the 2016 presidential election.

"The high Christian support for Trump is the result of many factors, but certainly one has to be her [Hillary Clinton] campaign's almost complete disregard for showing empathy or earnestly engaging faith communities — particularly white Catholics and evangelicals," Michael Wear, the "head of faith outreach" for Obama, told Christian Today.

"This must be part of the discussion of where the [Democrat] Party goes from here," he added.

The exit polls have shown that white evangelicals preferred Donald Trump over Clinton by a margin of 81 to 16 percent. The business mogul spent much of the campaign period directly courting evangelical voters while the former first lady largely ignored the religious demographic.

A majority of Catholics voted for Obama in the two previous elections but Trump gained back 52 percent of the Catholic vote for the Republican party in this election. Trump was also favored by Americans who attended church weekly by 56 to 40 percent.

Wear said that he would pray for the incoming president and he hoped that there would be healing and unity in the church.

In his Sept. 30 interview with Christian Today, he criticized Trump for being "the most secular, least prepared, least qualified and most dangerous nominee either party has nominated in the modern era."

He expressed his great admiration for Obama and he believed the outgoing president would continue to play a prominent public role.

Wear was brought up as a Catholic in Buffalo, New York. He became "antagonistic" towards faith but he turned to Christ when someone gave him Paul's Letters to the Romans. During Obama's first term, he led evangelical outreaches and assisted in managing the White House's engagement on religious and values issues such as adoption and anti-human trafficking efforts.

He described Clinton's liberal position on abortion as "morally reprehensible" but he denied that the former secretary of state has kept quiet about her Methodist-faith during the campaign.