Donald J. Trump likes to cite an exalted force when he’s asked about his religious convictions.

God?

Jesus?

Himself?

Try Norman Vincent Peale, the Christian minister whose book The Power of Positive Thinking was a pillar of American self-help culture during the 1950s and beyond.

Or “the great Norman Vincent Peale,” as the Republican front-runner refers to the preacher, who ministered to Trump and his parents before his 1993 death.

The feeling toward Trump is not exactly mutual among Peale’s offspring.

John Peale, 79, the minister’s son, said he winces when Trump invokes his father’s name, as the candidate has several times since launching his presidential campaign.

“I cringe,” Peale said in a phone interview. “I don’t respect Mr. Trump very much. I don’t take him very seriously. I regret the publicity of the connection. This is a problem for the Peale family.”

The Trump and Peale clans have history. Norman Vincent Peale presided at Donald Trump’s wedding to Ivana Trump. He also officiated at the wedding of Trump’s sister Maryanne. The mogul co-hosted the minister’s 90th-birthday bash.

It was not until the past year, after Trump launched his White House bid, that John Peale, a retired philosophy professor in Charlottesville, Va., started forming less-than-positive opinions about the developer.

Read the article “Donald Trump’s Religious Inspiration: Norman Vincent Peale” on washingtonpost.com.