Can a Kansas City pastor’s sunny unity message attract divided voters?
The U.S. Capitol, with snow and ice on the steps, glows against the night sky on Jan. 29, 2026. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)
What will it mean if Adam Hamilton, the pastor of the largest church in the region, runs for U.S. Senate in Kansas as an independent?
Hamilton’s stature, as the leader of the Church of the Resurrection, a United Methodist Church with its main campus in Leawood, makes this a complicated question. Hamilton recorded two videos this week, posting one to his exploratory campaign website and another on the church website.
He said that he would soon begin a listening tour of Kansas and decide whether to run after Easter. During the next few weeks, he will pray about the decision and divide his time between Lenten services and exploratory work.
“Over the past couple of years, many have asked whether I might bring the values, insights and experiences I have gained by leading the church I serve and the ability to work with people across the party ideological lines to public office,” Hamilton said. “I’ve never felt called to this until this past year.”
So many angles to consider.
First, there is religion. The union of church and state makes some folks nervous because of, well, the First Amendment. Hamilton counters that argument in both videos. He references current religious figures (see Baptist pastor Raphael Warnock of Georgia) and those who were in Congress at the country’s founding.
Some pundits will dissect Hamilton’s religious doctrine, wondering how it will guide him on issues. I’ll leave that to them since I am hardly a theologian — and because the rocky road of the campaign trail, let alone Congress, likely will jostle even the steadiest conscience.
Next, there are electoral angles. With Hamilton proposing to run as an independent, he will attempt to stand at the metaphorical 50-yard line. To one side, the steadfast supporters of incumbent Sen. Roger Marshall, hungry to preserve Republican dominance of Senate seats in Kansas. On the other side of the field, perhaps Sharice Davids, the U.S. representative who just might run in the Democratic primary.
I’ll happily leave the political optics — party identity, ideology and organization — to the political scientists to decide the pros and cons of Hamilton running unaffiliated.
The angle of Hamilton’s potential candidacy that fascinates me? His use of media.
This is a good moment to explain my connection to the Church of the Resurrection. My family lives so close to the church that its severed dome against the Leawood sky is the landmark we use to explain where we live to folks in the metro. I taught my kids to drive in the church’s sprawling parking lot, large enough for the sanctuary’s 3,500 capacity.
My son was baptized there 15 years ago, when we attended more frequently, but our household mostly attends only holiday services together, rather than each week or even each month.
Throughout all of those services, I have seen three media forces emerge: Hamilton, his writing and the church’s use video.
Hamilton appears via video often to reach church members. The physical size of the main sanctuary and the geographic spread of Church of the Resurrection demands big screens and streamed sermons. The church lists Leawood plus nine locations on its website.
In addition to polished recorded sermons and announcements, the congregation often watches promotional videos for upcoming sermon series (imagine wholesome movie trailers, but with more Jesus). A typical Church of the Resurrection service often surges and crackles with video production expertise.
It follows that Hamilton’s poise on camera as a potential candidate comes from years of recorded sermons. For instance, his comfort and gentility came through in one of his exploratory video announcements posted on the church’s YouTube channel.
His crisp one button-down and blue plaid jacket follow the formula for upper-class Johnson County dad attire (“Hey honey, do I own that jacket too?”). He stands, well lit in high definition in front of a gray-scale set of columns. His eye contact with the camera never wavers.
Find me another unelected candidate who is not an actor or news anchor who is so polished in front of the camera.
He joked, “Now, I wanted to be able to look you in the eyes and tell you this. OK … I can’t actually look in your eyes, but you can look in my eyes.”
For more than 11 minutes, Hamilton speaks seemingly extemporaneously in one video. The pair of videos navigates between personal (“My wife”), folksy (“Small town cafe”), heartfelt (“A persistent nudge in my heart”), ministerial (“in my prayers”) and earnest (“We have to do better”). As such, the writing matches the distinctive tone of his sermons.
Apart from that writing, Hamilton has published many books, and none of them the standard political autobiography with a ghost writer that precedes a typical campaign. Instead, Hamilton, whether through sermon or book, has explained thorny biblical and philosophical issues. Political dilemmas may be the next challenge for his keyboard.
His pastoral delivery is as subdued and welcoming as his rhetoric.
“I’ve tried to say this over the years: There are things that I value about both parties,” Hamilton said. “Every election I vote for Republicans and Democrats. I believe that running as an independent would allow me to build bridges, to seek to build coalitions of Republicans, Democrats and independents. It would allow me to say that I want to represent all of Kansas.”
Consider the recent Senate candidacy of Texas seminarian James Talarico. He was lauded as the “nice guy” candidate during the Democratic primary, which he won this week.
Even while being a candidate of unity, Talarico’s approach eventually generated political conflict — if not between red and blue, then as a difference of class.
“The real fight in this country is not left versus right,” Talarico told supporters in Austin, according to the New York Times. “It’s top versus bottom.”
In his exploratory video, Hamilton described American political divides more mildly: “Those are both really good words. To be conservative means to conserve traditions and values. To be liberal means to be generous of spirit and open to reform. … I am a liberal conservative and a conservative liberal.”
The Church of the Resurrection has attracted tens of thousands of members through a message and ethos of bridge building.
Can a political message of unity in 2026 do the same? Without leaning on any kind of ideological division, can Hamilton fire up supporters with his media savvy and writing skills?
Even some of his moderate church members might balk at political bridge-building during this moment of hyper-polarization. Kansans might find it naive to imagine Trump supporters compromising on immigration or liberals willing to bend on abortion rights in the name of unity.
Hamilton’s potential candidacy presents a feat of political gymnastics — a triple backflip with a few twists — that he would need to pull off.
I’ll admit here that his Church has done just that in my extended family. When we pile into the car for Christmas or Easter services, Hamilton’s church gathers a range of political allegiances in the Thomas family. Three generations, ranging from die-hard Democrats to MAGA Republicans, feel at home with Hamilton on the pulpit.
Perhaps the people across the table from him during the upcoming stops of his listening tour will similarly appreciate the Senate candidate that he could be. If so, the 2026 Senate race in Kansas would gain a complex candidate with ready-made media composure to pair with his measured writing.
Then we could move on to dissect those other political and religious considerations.
Eric Thomas teaches visual journalism and photojournalism at the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.