In front of thousands of supporters in Park City, Kansas, Republican U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall placed blame for a schism in the United Methodist Church squarely on the shoulders of his Democratic opponent, pastor Adam Hamilton.
“He’s the reason that the Methodist church split. One out of four left his denomination because of Adam Hamilton’s wokeness,” Marshall said.
The argument that Hamilton split up the denomination fits into Republicans' larger argument that Hamilton is too progressive for Kansas.
But did Adam Hamilton really split up the United Methodist Church and where does this claim come from?
Between 2019 and 2024, around a fourth of churches left the denomination. The primary catalyst was a disagreement over LGBTQ+ inclusion.
Some churches wanted to lift the ban on LGBTQ+ clergy and same-sex marriages, others did not.
The 7,500 churches that left in that window were, primarily, in the more conservative camp. Many of those churches joined the newly-formed Global Methodist Church. One new church in Overland Park, which is in the same county as Hamiton’s flagship campus, is part of that denomination.
On the issue of LGBTQ+ inclusion within Hamilton’s congregation, the Church of the Resurrection, Hamilton has made it clear that the queer community is welcome. After preaching on the subject in 2004, he lost some congregants.
But on asking other churches to adhere to the same ideology — specifically allowing LGBTQ+ clergy and same-sex marriages — he took what many United Methodist Church pastors would call a “centrist” approach.
In 2019, the United Methodist Church narrowly passed what was known as the Traditional Plan regarding LGBTQ+ involvement, which maintained the bans on LGBTQ+ clergy and same-sex weddings.
Hamilton, and most other Midwest delegates, advocated for the One Church Plan instead, which would allow local churches and regional bodies to decide how to approach LGBTQ+ policy. It was basically the United Methodist Church’s version of Kansas Statehouse delegates advocating for local control. That plan failed.
“There have been some spaces (Hamilton has) opened for conversations that I think ultimately may have been more progressive leaning conversations, but he’s spoken many times at general conferences and he’s always been pretty centrist,” Laura Wittman, an ordained United Methodist elder, told the Kansas News Service.
In response to the United Methodist Church passing the Traditional Plan, Hamilton hosted more than 600 United Methodists at “UMC Next” at his Leawood church. At that meeting, he committed to rejecting the Traditional Plan.
“That gathering was really trying to find some middle ground and some ways to move forward,” Wittman said. “The tone of the conversation was definitely more progressive leaning, but not super progressive.”
Despite the United Methodist Church’s decision to uphold the Traditional Plan, congregations still disaffiliated, or broke off. In part due to some United Methodist churches defying the plan.
“But it finally came to a head, because just as in politics as in religion, the fundamentalists and the conservatives are getting more fundamental conservative,” Gary Morsch, a longtime congregant of Church of the Resurrection said.
Hamilton is, undoubtedly, an influential voice in the denomination. He runs the largest United Methodist Church in the country. But after hearing the claim that Hamilton broke up the denomination, Wittman disagreed.
“I don't think he had a big role in disaffiliation," Wittman said.
In 2024, after the exodus of some conservative churches, the United Methodist Church voted to lift the ban on LGBTQ+ clergy and same-sex weddings. Nearly 750 delegates voted on the policy. Hamilton was one of those votes.
In the same conference, they voted to close the disaffiliation window — the period of time that opened in 2019 which allowed churches to leave the denomination.
The United Methodist Church is explicitly structured so that one person doesn’t have too much influence.
“There are always ways that you could be more involved, or more vocal,” Wittman said. “But (disaffiliation) is really not something that you could have a huge involvement in.”
Grace Hills reports on politics for the Kansas News Service.
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