Kansas Pastor and Democratic midterm candidate Adam Hamilton (Photo: Screen capture)
Vice President JD Vance dismissed a Kansas megachurch pastor’s faith as “not real Christianity," and Adam Hamilton answered with a challenge: “Let’s compare our faith and the impact we’re having on the world.” Now the dispute is raising an uncomfortable question for the vice president: Is he defending Christianity, or attacking Christians whose politics he dislikes?
Down the road a bit from the Saint Paul School of Theology sits Pastor Adam Hamilton's United Methodist mega-church, where he advocates supporting one's community, helping one's neighbor and being better stewards of the Earth. According to Vance, the pastor's Methodist faith is one of "left-wing radicalism" and "not real Christianity."
Hamilton called it "a sign of desperation, and I thought it was really sad. It was pathetic. He doesn't know me, doesn't know anything about my faith. He came in attacking, you know, when do we start attacking people's faith? I thought it was a sad statement that the vice president of the United States would come here and attack the faith of the pastor of the largest church in the state of Kansas, the largest United Methodist church in the country."
Audie Cornish noted that Vance "would literally go after the Pope," as he has multiple times, despite being a converted Catholic.
Aios senior media reporter Sara Fischer recalled the panic around John F. Kennedy and voters' concerns that, as a Catholic, he'd be more loyal to the Pope than to Americans.
"And to think that we're still at this point, 50 years later, the type of faith that you are within the Christianity sect is still so hotly debated. It kind of speaks to the fact that it feels like we're going back in time a little bit, that we're having these debates," Fischer said.
Tiana Lowe Doescher, a commentator for the conservative Washington Examiner, swore that Vance wasn't attacking Methodists when he called the religion "not real Christianity."
She then parroted an attack ad on Hamilton that The Kansas City Star has debunked. The ad falsely claims that Hamilton told his church that it was a sin to be white.
“Yeah, so every single line of what you just read was a lie,” Hamilton told ABC News on Sunday. “It was a false hit. It was, like, 180 degrees different from reality. So there was no part of what he said was true.”
He told veteran newsman Jonathan Karl that the sermon is about changing how you think. It is to have a "change of mind that leads to a change of heart that leads to a change in behavior." When talking about race, he said that the goal is to see the world through someone else's eyes.
Cornish jumped in, saying she's noticing this kind of reemergence of Democrats of faith is happening beyond Kansas, and that several candidates have a background in theology or went to seminary.
She then mocked Vance's book, titled Communion. It's about his conversion to Catholicism, but the book features a Methodist church on the front.
Doescher again said Vance wasn't attacking Methodists, but the idea of preaching about "the evils of climate change." Many Christians see the Earth as a gift from God. Genesis 2:15 calls on humanity to “work” and “take care” of the garden while being good stewards of the land.
"But do the people in Kansas recognize that distinction?" asked Fischer. "Because I think just coming out here and speaking ill of anybody — targeting their religion, I don't think people are necessarily interpreting it to that level of detail. I think it just looks like, you know, a one politician attacking another politician over religion."
Hamilton told Karl it's one of the many things he sees wrong with what's happening in the U.S. today.
These kinds of lies, he said, are reminders of the chaos and corruption in Washington that even the "vice president would say things like that."
“I slip to my knees, I offer my life to Christ, I pray for the Holy Spirit to lead me, I read scripture, I carry the Bible with me everywhere I go.” He pulled a small Bible from his back pocket during the interview.
“I not only seek to be a follower of Jesus, but to practice that in how I treat other people,” Hamilton said. “And I just would say examine my life, examine the way I’ve tried to live and then I want to see, Mr. Vice President, let’s compare. Let’s compare theology. Let’s compare our faith and the impact we’re having on the world.”
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