A Kansas Democratic Senate candidate and prominent United Methodist pastor said Christians are not required to believe in the Virgin Birth, arguing on his podcast that the doctrine became a non-negotiable only with the rise of Christian fundamentalism. Breitbart News reported on the remarks, which Adam Hamilton made last year on Making Sense of Faith with Adam Hamilton.
Hamilton, senior pastor of the Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas — which Breitbart describes as the largest United Methodist congregation in the country — is challenging incumbent Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) in a race polling within a single point. According to RealClearPolling averages cited by Breitbart, Marshall leads by just 0.7 percentage points.
“That’s okay. I just want you to follow Jesus.”
In the podcast episode, Hamilton described his own position as a deliberate choice rather than settled certainty. He said he believes in the Virgin Birth because the Gospel stories tell it, and that he “suspend[s] my logic” on the question of exactly how the conception worked. “I don’t know exactly what happened, so I’m going with this story,” he said, adding that he chooses to trust and believe it.
But he drew a line between his personal belief and what he thinks the faith demands of others. Hamilton noted that the virginal conception appears only in Matthew and Luke and is absent from Paul’s letters, the Book of Acts and the rest of the New Testament. If the doctrine were required for salvation, he reasoned, Paul would have written about it. Hamilton allowed that Paul may not have known the stories, may not have thought about them, or may simply not have felt the need to reference them.
He then described how he counsels people who struggle with the claim. “I say to people who tell me, ‘I’m not really sure I can believe in the Virgin Birth,’ I’m like, ‘That’s okay. I just want you to follow Jesus,'” Hamilton said. He argued that Jesus never told his disciples they had to understand the mechanics of his conception to follow him — only “Come follow me.”
Hamilton framed his belief as theological rather than biological. “What I really believe about it isn’t a biology lesson; it’s a theology lesson and who I think Jesus is,” he said.
Hamilton ties the doctrine to fundamentalism
The pastor traced the insistence on the Virgin Birth to the early 20th-century fundamentalist movement, which he described as partly a reaction against liberalizing trends and a willingness to read Scripture metaphorically. In that period, he said, the Virgin Birth became one of the “fundamentals” — a belief required to count as a real Christian. Hamilton said he understands why the doctrine is a stumbling block for some, and reiterated his view that Jesus would not have conditioned discipleship on accepting a particular account of his conception.
Breitbart’s report notes that the Virgin Birth is affirmed in both the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed and is central to the traditional Christian claim that Jesus is fully God and fully man. The outlet points to Matthew and Luke as laying out the virgin conception through the Holy Spirit, and to the Old Testament book of Isaiah as foretelling it centuries earlier.
A record of controversy, per Breitbart
The article situates the podcast remarks within a longer list of theological and political controversies it attributes to Hamilton. Breitbart reports that he has previously said the Bible contains “hundreds” of errors; that in a 2022 sermon he suggested Muslims, Hindus and adherents of other faiths would reach Heaven and recognize Jesus after death; and that in 2015 he questioned how much “latitude” Christians have to push back on Scripture, including whether the Apostle Paul could be “wrong.”
Breitbart also cites its own prior reporting that the Church of the Resurrection partnered with Kansas City PrideFest to sponsor a “Drag Queen Story Time & Gay Pride Festival.” The outlet notes that Hamilton has voiced support for legal abortion, Black Lives Matter and affirming same-sex marriage within the United Methodist Church — positions Breitbart frames as at odds with his self-presentation as a moderate.
The Senate contest in Kansas has drawn national attention as one of the cycle’s closest races. Hamilton’s combination of a large pulpit and a statewide political platform makes his theological views unusually relevant to a general-election audience, and his podcast comments give opponents a readily quotable contrast with orthodox Christian teaching on the Incarnation.
Neither the Hamilton campaign nor the Church of the Resurrection responded in the Breitbart report to the points raised about the Virgin Birth. The article was written by Breitbart political reporter Katherine Hamilton.
Source: www.breitbart.com — https://www.breitbart.com/faith/2026/10/19/kansas-dem-adam-hamilton-christians-donthaveto-believe-jesus-mother-virgin/