A 2020 sermon by Adam Hamilton, the Democratic nominee challenging Republican Sen. Roger Marshall for Kansas’ U.S. Senate seat, is drawing attention as the race tightens. In the sermon, delivered when Hamilton led the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection, he urged his congregation to reconsider habits including driving and eating beef because of their effect on the climate.
The sermon, titled “What would Jesus say about climate change?” was given in January 2020 and reviewed by Fox News Digital. In it, Hamilton described repentance as changing one’s heart and behavior after seeing an issue differently.
“So what I’m calling you to today, and I’m calling myself to it, because I’ve been wasteful, I’ve done things that wasn’t, you know, I didn’t think about it, how it wasn’t really good stewardship of the earth around me,” Hamilton said. “I’m calling us to repentance to say, ‘I realize that this has impact, even if it seems small, it has an impact on the world and future generations. And I feel badly about that, and I’m going to do something different from this time forward.'”
During the 44-minute address, which combined scripture with a presentation on greenhouse gases, Hamilton pointed to cattle as an example of a food source that produces more carbon dioxide than some alternative crops.
“Some of the things that we grow, because we like to eat them, like cattle, end up producing more carbon dioxide than other crops that we could grow, other forms of food that we could have,” Hamilton said. “And so, in all of these ways, we are creating or adding to the amount of greenhouse gases in our world.”
He also suggested that changing diets, alongside reducing fossil fuel use, could lower methane and carbon dioxide output: “Now, you got to do everything you can to reduce your own usage of fossil fuels, but maybe changing your diet so that the things that you eat require less production that creates methane and carbon dioxide and everything else.”
Cattle industry’s role in Kansas
Kansas is the nation’s third-largest beef producer, according to the Kansas Livestock Association, and is home to roughly 5.8 million head of cattle compared with a human population of about 2.9 million. The industry generates tens of billions of dollars for the state’s economy and employs tens of thousands of Kansans.
Kansas Livestock Association Chief Executive Officer Matt Teagarden criticized the sermon’s framing of beef’s climate impact. “It is disappointing that a candidate for the U.S. Senate in Kansas, one of the nation’s top beef-producing states, would make a statement like this to his parishioners about beef’s impact on the climate,” Teagarden said. “Beef is an important, nutritious part of the American diet, and cattle play a significant role in maintaining grassland health and conservation, while accounting for only 2% of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.”
Campaigns respond
Marshall’s campaign seized on the sermon as evidence Hamilton would align with national Democratic priorities. “In a state with more cattle than people, Hamilton saying that Kansans need to repent for eating too much beef and flip-flopping on the Farm Bill proves he’d be just like every other liberal Democrat in the Senate,” Marshall told Fox News Digital.
Hamilton’s campaign pushed back, arguing Marshall himself has taken positions affecting the cattle industry. Spokesperson Tyson Brody said Marshall has “repeatedly introduced legislation to reduce emissions from cattle and claimed ‘everyone’s concerned about the methane production in the cattle industry.'” Brody added that Marshall “even bragged that the decline of the herd ‘eliminated half of the methane gas produced from cattle already.'”
“As Adam said at the debate, Roger should repent for failing to stand up for Kansas cattle producers on tariffs, imports, and skyrocketing diesel prices, and now he should repent for attacking Adam for something Roger Marshall said himself in the Senate,” Brody said. “Kansas producers don’t need lectures from someone who voted to put warning labels on hot dogs and bacon.”
A tightening race
Kansas has voted Republican for the Senate for 94 years, but the contest between Hamilton and Marshall has narrowed in recent months amid a difficult political environment for the GOP nationally. Fox News’ Power Rankings moved the race from “Likely R” to “Lean R,” and the Cook Political Report made a similar shift.
Rising fuel prices, including diesel costs important to Kansas’ agriculture-dependent economy, have added to voter anxiety this cycle. The Post reported those price increases have followed the Iran war involving President Donald Trump, expanding the number of Senate battlegrounds Republicans must defend to keep their majority.
