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(RNS) — The Rev. Adam Hamilton is a U.S. senator-elect now, but pastoral habits — particularly ones that built his congregation, a United Methodist megachurch that reports more than 20,000 worshippers on an average Sunday — die hard.
When he spoke to a Religion News Service reporter over the phone last week, he refused to begin the interview without first asking after the reporter. He quickly launched into questions more at home in a post-worship receiving line than a conversation with a reporter.
But it’s precisely the kind of effusively personable demeanor — combined with an unapologetic embrace of faith and centrist approach to politics — that helped make Hamilton the first Democratic U.S. senator from Kansas in nearly a century. And as he explained in a conversation with RNS, it’s also a spirit he hopes to bring to Washington, D.C.
“Any time I can be of help, I want to,” Hamilton said.
It may come in handy. The role of a moderate politician can be simultaneously powerful and controversial on Capitol Hill, with critiques coming from all sides. But as Hamilton explained, he plans to draw on his faith — as well as a background in the deceptively thorny world of church politics — to deflect any “arrows” that come his way.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
A year ago, you had zero experience as a lawmaker or as a political candidate. Now you’re a U.S. senator-elect. How are you processing that rapid change, spiritually?
First of all, I feel honored, humbled, and grateful the people of Kansas chose me to be their next United States senator.
I can’t express how much I feel a sense of gratitude and, honestly, a bit of surprise. We got in six months ago because I felt I was being called to do this: I’m never 100% sure of God’s will — I kid around and say I was 82.7% sure this was God’s will. But there were so many things that pointed to the idea that we were to be doing this.
We got into this with a deep sense of conviction and a sense that there were things happening in Washington, D.C., that were not okay, that people were being hurt by decisions that were being made there. There was corruption. There was belittling and demeaning people. I just kept saying: This is not okay. Somebody’s got to do something.
Finally, earlier this year my wife looked at me and said: “Why not you?” And we began to pray more seriously about that. So we jumped in the race.
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On Election Day — based on all the polling data, based upon just an internal gut feeling — I thought, “I think we’re gonna win this.” But I had also tried to prepare myself for losing. I told myself: “You’re not gonna win, you’re not gonna win.”
So when they finally announced it, it was a pretty great feeling of: Wow, God called us to do this, and here we are. We actually have a chance to serve our state and our country.
It was pretty exhilarating.
As you’re heading into the halls of Congress, are there certain legislative ideas and policies that you definitely want to work on?
I want to start with the things that are harming people across the United States, and particularly in my state. One of those is the war in Iran, which, of course, drove up gasoline prices for the average American about $100 a month. For farmers, it was far worse than that: Diesel fuel went from roughly $3 a gallon to $6 a gallon in the state of Kansas.
All of these things are harming the people in my state, and part of what I ran on was I’m gonna do everything I can to stop the harm. So, let’s get out of the war in Iran.
Second thing is tariffs. There are tariff policies that are hurting our ability to trade with our partners — Canada in particular, where we Kansans export $4 billion worth of goods every year. Yet, in Washington, we’ve been insulting our Canadian neighbors for a year and a half at least.
I want to work with others on clawing back some say in these tariffs for Congress, which is how the Constitution is laid out. If the president’s going to impose a tariff, he’s going to have to make the case to Congress for that.
Beyond that, I would say we’ve got to focus on healthcare immediately. There are 60,000 people in Kansas who no longer have health insurance who had it a year and a half ago … I think we need to reverse that.
Long term, what I think we need to do is address the really big issues facing us as a country. Those are a true healthcare reform that Republicans and Democrats can stack hands on. Looking at immigration reform. The third is Social Security, and really focusing on the six-year time horizon — we have to solve the trust fund issues. And then, finally, the national debt.
There were some pretty high-profile attacks on your faith during the campaign — from the vice president and even the president. However, something I found striking was that after those attacks, both your local UMC bishop and 132 of your fellow UMC pastors published public statements defending you.
Do you have any reflections on the attacks and the response?
When I was considering, praying about and discerning whether to run for the U.S. Senate, it was during the season of Lent. I was fasting every day at lunch, praying, and I was preaching through the Sermon on the Mount.
You get to the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes, and Jesus says, “Blessed are you when people say all manner of evil against you, and when they revile you.” I preached a sermon on that, and I said, “Look, this is what happens in politics.”
But you know, Jesus says, “Rejoice and be glad” when that happens. I thought to myself, “I would pray for my opponent. God, please guide and help him.” What I found is, I might have to pray that through gritted teeth, but it helped take away what might have been an anger or resentment toward (Republican opponent Sen. Roger Marshall). There were probably thousands of people who were praying for me every day. My wife and I both felt that. There would be what felt like arrows being shot at us, attacking our faith, integrity, with all kinds of, you know, falsehoods and twisting of the truth. But it was so interesting: I’d never felt this quite so strongly, but it felt like these arrows coming our way would just bounce off of us and fall on the ground.
I attribute that to prayer.
I’ve been reading through the Psalms during the campaign. Often, David talks about his enemies reviling him or harassing him. Those passages in the Psalms never really spoke to me before, but this time, every psalm I read with these passages, I’m like, “Wow. He was going through what I’m going through right now.”
Those passages really began to speak to me in ways that they never had before. What I found interesting, though, was David — or the psalmist — often then says, tear my opponents limb from limb, or destroy my opponents. But when I came to those verses, I just kept remembering Jesus, who told us to pray for those who persecute us, who told us to love our enemies.
I thought Jesus’ answer is a much better answer.
In August, you imagined a scenario in which a moderate Republican senator and a moderate Democratic senator from Kansas would work together to frame things on Capitol Hill. Moderates often have a lot of power in Congress, but it can also be a pretty difficult position. You played a similarly centrist role within the United Methodist Church. Are you hoping to draw on that experience when you get to Congress?
My place in ministry has almost always been this place standing in what I call the radical center, or the “via media” is how (Theologian and evangelist John) Wesley referred to it. This really came from pre-Wesley, this idea of Anglicanism being a via media, or a middle way.
I tell people I’m a liberal conservative, and a conservative liberal, depending on the day of the week and what the issue might be. What I know is when I’ve preached over the last 38 years, I try to help people hear both sides: “Okay, here’s the truth we can bring from this side and this side, and how we might actually be stronger by listening to the truths on both sides.”
I typically will have people on the far left and the far right both sending me nasty emails. And I always think, if I get roughly an even number of nasty emails from both sides, I probably was in the right spot. It’s not to be in the middle for the middle’s sake, because some things are really black and white. … (But) I do find that so many times if we can actually listen to the other side, we can understand. Often people are motivated by fears; If we understand their fears, listen to their deeply held convictions, we actually might find some places where we agree with each other.
Once we begin to listen and actually pay attention to the other and show that we understand, we’re in a position to be able to say, “Okay, how can we take your concerns into account as we’re coming up with a solution?” I think that’s how things are supposed to work.
As a pastor of a church that’s largely divided (politically), I find we’re a better church because we have Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, in Sunday school together, in worship together, serving Communion to each other. It makes us better.
I think that’s what we need in Washington, D.C.
You’re coming in with a bunch of other clergy into Congress, most of them Democrats. There are rumors of a Congressional Clergy Caucus, or something similar. Would you be interested in that? And have you decided whether you’ll go by Reverend Senator or Senator Reverend yet?
I haven’t thought about the title yet. Most of the time I’m going to tell people call me Adam.
When it comes to Senate, there are actually two other ordained clergy — Sens. Raphael Warnock and James Lankford. (Editor’s note: Lankford is not ordained, but is licensed for ministry in the Southern Baptist Convention, which allows him to perform many ministerial duties similar to a congregational pastor.) There are others like Sen. Chris Coons who went to (Yale Divinity School) — he has his law degree as well as his Master’s of Theological Studies. And then (Texas Senator-elect) James Talarico, who’s just finishing seminary, I believe.
Now in the House, they have, I think, maybe four or five who are coming in this time around. I don’t know if it’s going to be so much a caucus of clergy as it is a caucus of thoughtful people who take their faith seriously. I’ve met a lot of Democrats who do — (Sen.) Tim Kaine is another one.
In the Democratic Party in particular, that’s not often talked about publicly, but I think that’s going to change. I think there’s people saying, “Okay how does our faith in particular inform our ethics?”
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Here, I think of the 2,000 passages in the Bible that speak about being concerned for the poor, being concerned for widows and orphans or the stranger in your midst. Love one another. Love your neighbor as you love yourself. So many other passages.
I’ve heard already that there’s two Bible studies Tuesday and Thursday mornings in the Senate, and one prayer service on Wednesdays. The prayer service is pretty bipartisan — it’s roughly evenly split between Republicans and Democrats. So I’m interested in us not trying to impose Christianity on America — as some Christian nationalists might try to do. Instead, it’s thoughtful people who are asking, “What does it look like to love my neighbor as I love myself? What does it look like to do unto others as I’d have them do unto us, or do unto me?”
I’m pretty excited about that.