10 Christian Democrats running on their faith in the Nov. 3 midterm elections
1. Pastor Adam Hamilton of Kansas
The founding pastor of Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Hamilton is the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Kansas, challenging Republican Sen. Roger Marshall.
Hamilton, 61, built his church from a few members meeting in a funeral home chapel in 1990 into a 25,000-member congregation with nine locations across the Kansas City area, making it the largest United Methodist Church in the U.S. He has written more than 30 books and preached at the National Prayer Service at Washington National Cathedral after then-President Barack Obama’s second inauguration in 2013.
Hamilton spent the Lenten season traveling the state for listening sessions as he explored running for Senate as an independent before announcing on April 30 that he would run as a Democrat. If elected, Hamilton plans to continue as senior pastor at his Church of the Resurrection in the Kansas City area, preaching 12 to 18 times a year. Kansas has not elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1932.
Marshall has called Hamilton “too woke,” and Trump said in October that Hamilton “openly mocks Jesus.”
Earlier this year, Kansas GOP leaders filed an ethics complaint alleging that Hamilton “blatantly used the corporate resources of the church” to publicize his February announcement that he was exploring a run. Separately, Kansas United Methodist leaders dismissed attacks on Hamilton by Vice President JD Vance and Marshall as “inaccurate and unwarranted,” describing them as an “invective against the church, of which Adam is the founding pastor.”
