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The Republican Attacking His Opponent’s 'Woke' Church

Republicans are desperate to portray Adam Hamilton, a megachurch pastor who won the Democratic nomination to challenge Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), as too woke for conservative Kansas, where no Democrat has won a Senate seat for more than a century.

Main Street Fund, a super PAC which has yet to reveal any of its donors, is running an ad slamming Hamilton as a "woke megachurch CEO." After Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) claimed Hamilton "rejected the central tenets of Christianity," Marshall thanked him for it. "This is one of only hundreds of examples," the Republican promised.

Hamilton is the founding pastor of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection, one of the largest United Methodist congregations in the U.S. Political forecasters pointed to his primary victory this month as materially boosting Democrats' chances to take the Senate, even if Marshall remains a significant favorite.

Democratic U.S. senatorial candidate Adam Hamilton of Kansas talks about funding issues facing Medicare and Medicaid during a meeting with administrators at the Health Partnership Clinic for low-income families on Aug. 12 in Olathe, Kansas.

To bolster their claims of wokeness, the Main Street Fund TV ad claims Hamilton used church funds to promote drag queen story time for children, that he wants to force people to become vegetarians, and the ad plays a clip of Hamilton talking about racial justice: "By virtue of being white, I have to repent."

The ad is wildly misleading — Hamilton did say those individual words in a June 2020 sermon, but not in that sequence.

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"I grew up in a way that I'm blind to certain things in our society. I just am, and I have certain benefits by virtue of being educated, white, and male," Hamilton said, just weeks after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Almost a minute and 200 words later, Hamilton added, "I have to listen and understand and finally be able to see the brokenness in myself and my indifference before I can do anything to help anyone else. I have to have a conversion. I have to repent."

Hamilton attended a protest following the killing of Floyd in 2020, the National Republican Senatorial Committee has noted, and Republicans have also highlighted his support for LGBTQ clergy.

In an election cycle with actual socialists on the ballot in multiple other states, Hamilton's woke transgressions seem a bit mild. Even pastors at Marshall's own church, First Christian Church in Great Bend, Kansas, in recent years have sought to raise awareness of racism.

"If you don't think racism is alive and well in Great Bend, Kansas, I would encourage you to have a conversation with one of our Hispanic or African American brothers and sisters who live here and have them tell you what it's really like to live as a minority in Great Bend, Kansas," Joshua Leu, who served as the church's senior pastor for years, said in a 2025 video sermon.

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Leu has followed Hamilton's work and said he's not a radical leftist.

"I would say that he's a middle-of-the-road pastor who is willing to listen to all sides, and then based on his understanding of the gospel, try to make the best decision," Leu told HuffPost in an interview. "But he knows he could be wrong, and is willing and able to allow others to disagree with him, and not hate them. He's pretty good at loving his enemies."

Marshall previously served as a board member of the First Christian Church. Leu offered a benediction when Marshall kicked off his bid for a House seat in 2015, and two years later he invited Leu to Washington to say the House's opening prayer.

"From what I know about Roger Marshall, he is a great guy, a committed Christian, and the church in Great Bend wouldn't be where it is today without his support and generosity and leadership," Leu said.

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In an emailed statement, Brent Robertson, Marshall's campaign chief of staff, reiterated that Hamilton is overly woke.

"Anyone who says we should repent from eating beef and sponsors drag shows is way too woke for Kansas."

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Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) talks with reporters outside the Senate Budget Committee confirmation hearing for Hal Duncan, nominee to be deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, on June 16.

There's also no evidence for the Main Street Fund ad's claim that Hamilton used church funds to pay for "drag queen story time for kids." The ad offers no citation, and there's no obvious instance of the church supporting such an event. The person whose name is listed on the group's Federal Election Commission paperwork didn't respond to a request for comment through his consulting firm.

In a 2022 sermon in Leawood, Kansas, Hamilton talked about welcoming the LGBTQ community into the church, and about how he appreciated how a certain drag queen preacher could reach people he couldn't himself. But he said he wouldn't ask a drag queen to preach at his church in Leawood.

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"I don't think that would be helpful to our congregation. I think it would actually be harmful in my attempt to try to hold people together," Hamilton said.

A spokesperson for Hamilton's campaign declined to comment for this story.