A Methodist Pastor Leads in Kansas as Trump Returns for Marshall. A Pastor's Doctrine Is Fair Game, so Tell the Truth About It.

The facts come first below. My opinion follows in the section marked as opinion.

A United Methodist pastor is leading a Republican senator in Kansas three days before the election, and the fight over his church has become part of the race. Democrat Adam Hamilton, senior pastor of the country's largest Methodist parish, led Sen. Roger Marshall 52% to 43% in a Washington Post-Schar School poll of likely voters, USA Today reported. Kansas has not elected a Democratic senator since 1932.

The final Emerson College poll found Hamilton at 49% and Marshall at 45%, with 3% for Libertarian David Graham and 3% undecided, according to Emerson College Polling. USA Today noted that the Post and George Mason University pollsters acknowledged their results could have overestimated Democratic support because Democrats were far more eager to respond.

President Trump canceled a weekend rally in Kansas on Thursday and then put it back on his schedule. He will rally in Salina on Sunday, Nov. 1, USA Today reported. "We have a couple of races that are very important, and they said if you could go, it would be better than a tele-rally," Trump said Friday. Dock Line covered his earlier Kansas stop for Marshall in Trump Uses 'Shylock' Slur Defending Roger Marshall at Kansas Rally.

A pastor on the ballot

Hamilton told his congregation at the Church of the Resurrection that before running he spent 12 weeks in a process of discernment, praying and fasting and "asking if this was God's will, why me, and what difference I could make if I ran," according to the church's announcement. He said he would remain senior pastor but would reduce his schedule and would not preach during the campaign. The church says it does not endorse candidates and has set up firewalls so that staff, data and facilities are not used for the campaign.

Marshall has made Hamilton's role in his denomination an issue. At a rally in Park City, he said: "He's the reason that the Methodist church split. One out of four left his denomination because of Adam Hamilton's wokeness," KCUR reported.

The facts behind that charge are more complicated. Between 2019 and 2024, about a fourth of United Methodist churches left the denomination, and the main cause was a disagreement over whether to lift the bans on LGBTQ clergy and same-sex weddings, according to KCUR. About 7,500 churches, mostly conservative, left in that window, and many joined the new Global Methodist Church.

In 2019 the denomination passed the Traditional Plan, which kept those bans. Hamilton backed the failed One Church Plan, which would have let local churches and regional bodies decide, and he then hosted more than 600 United Methodists at his Leawood church, where he committed to rejecting the Traditional Plan, KCUR reported. In 2024 he was among the delegates who voted to lift the bans. An ordained United Methodist elder, Laura Wittman, told the Kansas News Service: "I don't think he had a big role in disaffiliation."

Opinion: A pastor's doctrine is fair game, so tell the truth about it

Christians should not pretend a pastor's theology is off limits when he asks for a seat in the Senate. Hamilton put his faith at the center of his decision to run, and voters have every right to weigh what he has taught. On marriage, the record is plain. He worked against his church's rule that marriage is between a man and a woman, and he voted to end it. Scripture and two thousand years of Christian teaching say otherwise, and a believing voter may count that against him.

But a fair charge does not need to be stretched. Saying that one man single-handedly split a denomination goes further than the record shows. The facts are bad enough for Hamilton's position without inflating them. The churches that left were mostly conservative, and they did not leave because of one pastor in Leawood. They left because they would not bend on what they believe the Bible says, and that conviction deserves to be described accurately, not turned into a campaign slogan.

There is a warning here for any pastor who steps into politics. James wrote, "My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation." Those who teach are judged more strictly. A shepherd who becomes a candidate carries his pulpit with him. His people will hear every campaign promise as something said by their pastor, and his opponents will hold every sermon against him. Hamilton chose that burden with his eyes open, and his church has tried to keep a wall between the two. Whether that wall holds after Tuesday is a question his congregation will have to answer.

Kansas voters will decide the race. They should do it with clear eyes about what each man believes and has done, not on slogans from either side.