Key points:
- The Rev. Adam Hamilton defeated a Republican incumbent and is headed to Washington as the junior senator from Kansas.
- He hopes to model a more mainstream view of Christianity and be a unifier in bringing Republicans and Democrats together to address tough issues.
- The United Methodist pastor said he can’t guarantee he’ll never vote contrary to the Book of Discipline, but he pledges not to vote for anything that’s inconsistent with loving God or neighbor.
The newly elected junior senator from Kansas — a United Methodist pastor — hopes to model an alternative to the conservative, evangelical view of Christianity.
“In light of the surge in Christian nationalism, I’m grateful for the chance to show who we are as United Methodist Christians,” said Sen.-elect Adam Hamilton, who is also founder and senior pastor of Resurrection, a multisite United Methodist church in Leawood, Kansas, and the denomination’s largest U.S. congregation.
“I ran because I feel like our Constitution is under assault, and I am going to fight for all people in my state, and that’s atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, Muslims and all Christians.”
Hamilton, 62, stressed in an interview with United Methodist News that he doesn’t want to be “chaplain to the Senate” or “America’s pastor.”
But he is dedicated to The United Methodist Church approach to life. He referred to the General Rules of the denomination during his successful campaign against the incumbent Republican Sen. Roger Marshall. As summarized by the late United Methodist Bishop Rueben Job, Methodism founder John Wesley’s General Rules for the people called Methodist are: “Do no harm,” “Do all the good you can” and “Stay in love with God.”
“For the next six years, I’d like to help us in the United States Senate, to the degree that I can as a junior senator from Kansas, to do everything I can to help us make sure the federal government does not harm,” Hamilton said. “The second thing I’d like to do, personally and for us as a Senate, is to do everything that I can do and everything the Senate can do, to do as much good as we can.”
In addition to the General Rules, Hamilton relates well to the call in the new United Methodist vision statement to “love boldly, serve joyfully and lead courageously.”
“I felt like each one of those statements aligned with why I would run for the U.S. Senate. … especially when I got to the last one on leading courageously.”
Hamilton represents “midwestern values … that don’t exclude anybody else,” said James Hudnut-Beumler, a scholar of mainstream Christianity and former dean of Vanderbilt Divinity School.
“The thing that may be happening that is the start of something is that particularly younger voters are turned off by hardcore evangelical Christian Trump values that don’t seem to go along with the Jesus thing,” he said.
Successful politicians compromise to get things done, which might present conflicts for Hamilton. Bishop Julius C. Trimble, top executive of the United Methodist Board of Church and Society, which advocates in Washington on issues important to the church, thinks Hamilton will agree with the church’s stance most of the time.
“I would hope that persons would not compromise on the core values that we lift up in terms of commitment to creation care, commitment to humanitarian aid,” Trimble said. “Not only just for those of us inside the United States, but our global responsibility to addressing humanitarian crises.”
Hamilton plans to prioritize ending the war in Iran, addressing the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration and restoring credits for health insurance.
“The war in Iran has directly harmed people in my state, in every state,” he said. “It’s $100 a month more in fuel prices. It’s fertilizer prices. It’s diesel fuel that almost doubled in price.
“I want to help us get out of that war as quickly as possible.”
Celebrating 35 years of Resurrection
On Oct. 7, 1990, 100 people attended the first Resurrection worship service at the McGilly Chapel Funeral Home in South Kansas City. Today, the church has multiple locations and reports more than 24,000 members. A new video looks back at Rev. Adam Hamilton’s vision for the church and where that has led the congregation over the past 35 years.
Hamilton is also keen do something about the state of medical insurance in the U.S. One example is federal Medicaid, which will be cut by nearly a trillion dollars from 2025 to 2034 if nothing changes. The cuts became law as part of President Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill.”
“I want to see us restore (Medicaid) so that people have health insurance,” Hamilton said, “and then for us to spend the next couple of years working on how do we reform healthcare so that everyone has access to a basic level of healthcare in America?”
Within the Senate, he wants to be a unifier.
“It’s bringing thoughtful Republicans and thoughtful Democrats together to address tough issues,” Hamilton said. “This is what I’ve done in my ministry for 38 years.
“What I want to do in D.C. is to figure out how do I start building relationships across the aisle, building trust. … That’s the way it’s supposed to function, and that is doing the work of the people.”
The 120th United States Congress will officially convene on Jan. 3, but relationship building already has begun. Hamilton spent two days in Washington at new senator orientation the week of Nov. 8 and said he was “deeply moved” by the experience.
“We started with the entire freshman class, Democrats and Republicans together. We sat on panels and shared dinners with leading senators from both parties. Before any of us had cast a single vote, we started getting to know each other as people. That’s where common ground begins,” he said in a post on Facebook.
Being a pastor will help in his work as a senator, Hamilton told UM News.
“I’m thinking these are the kind of skills that a pastor has to build relationships,” he said. “To care for people, to build trust and then let’s see what happens from there.”
Although Hamilton will rent a home in Washington, he is keeping his Kansas home and will stay the senior pastor at Resurrection, which has nine locations and more than 24,000 members. He has already announced plans to retire in 2030 and that hasn’t changed, he said.
“I want to preach 12 to 18 times a year at Resurrection,” Hamilton said. “We’ve set it up where I’ll be quarter time (in the pastor position). I’ve worked at Resurrection for 60 to 65 hours a week for 36 years. I’m thinking this is 10 hours a week at Resurrection and probably 50 hours a week Senate work.”
Hamilton said he would attend the two Bible studies and a morning prayer service offered for senators each week.
“Two of those Bible studies have a majority Republicans in them, and the morning prayer service is roughly evenly balanced between Republicans and Democrats,” Hamilton said. “I’m going to try to attend those as much as I can, and build relationships with thoughtful Christians and thoughtful people of faith.
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“But I’m going to do not just that. I want to figure out who are the people on the other side of the aisle that we can build relationships with to be able to bring about change.”
Bishop Ken Carter of the Western North Carolina Conference said he is “thrilled” that Hamilton is going to Washington.
“I have known him to be a person who truly does listen across differences in respectful and transformational ways,” he said.
Will Hamilton always vote according to United Methodist principles, including the Book of Discipline, the denomination’s policy book?
“Well, look, there are things in the Book of Discipline I don’t agree with,” Hamilton said. “We have the freedom of conscience to be able to disagree with some of those. Generally, I agree with them, but my aim is to do what best represents the people of Kansas.
“My aim is to never vote for anything that’s inconsistent with loving God or loving your neighbor.”
Patterson is a reporter for UM News. Contact him at 615-742-5470. To read more United Methodist news, subscribe to the free UM News Digest.
