A newly surfaced 2015 video shows Democratic Senate candidate and pastor Adam Hamilton questioning how much “latitude” Christians have to push back on the Bible, including whether they can say the Apostle Paul was “wrong.” The remarks were made at an event hosted by the Reformation Project, an LGBTQ-affirming Christian nonprofit founded by Matthew Vines to reform church teaching on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Hamilton, the senior pastor of the Church of the Resurrection in Kansas, spoke during a pastors’ panel at the event. In the video, he traced his evolving views to congregants who came out to him as gay, saying it left him without a framework for reading scripture.
“How in fact did God inspire it? How much latitude do we have to push back on it? Where can we say, you know, here I think Paul’s wrong?” Hamilton said, calling it “a really unnerving thought” for someone who read scripture daily.
Hamilton said the tension first surfaced during a 2001 sermon series, and that the message that shifted his thinking was one focused on the violence of God in the Old Testament. He said he came to see those passages as incompatible with the teachings of Jesus and concluded there was “a little more culture in the Bible” than he had previously allowed.
Implications for Same-Gender Relationships
“That has implications for how I read the passages of scripture that are often applied to same gender relationships,” Hamilton said in the video, which was first reported by Breitbart News.
The comments add to a broader pattern in Hamilton’s public ministry. In a January 2025 sermon on Mary Magdalene, Hamilton argued that churches barring women from the pulpit had misread Paul’s letters. He said such churches “turned to Paul who’s trying to address first century Christianity” rather than following what Jesus did with Mary Magdalene. The outlet Protestia covered that sermon under a headline suggesting Hamilton had called Paul “wrong” about women in ministry.
Hamilton has also said in recent years that the Bible contains “hundreds” of errors. During a 2022 sermon, he suggested that Muslims, Hindus, and adherents of other faiths would reach Heaven and recognize Jesus after death.
Kansas Senate Race Heats Up
Now Hamilton is running for the U.S. Senate in Kansas, where he faces incumbent Republican Sen. Roger Marshall. Hamilton won the Democratic primary earlier this month, and his campaign has cast him as a moderate voice in a deep-red state.
Recent polling shows a tight race. A Public Policy Polling survey placed Marshall at 46 percent and Hamilton at 45 percent, with 9 percent undecided. The pollster leans Democratic, but analysts have in recent weeks shifted the race from “safe Republican” to “likely Republican,” suggesting the seat remains competitive but favors the GOP incumbent.
The 2015 video is likely to fuel criticism from conservative groups and Marshall’s campaign, who have already sought to paint Hamilton as out of step with Kansas values on social issues. Hamilton’s own church, the Church of the Resurrection, is the largest United Methodist congregation in the country, and his theological positions have drawn both praise from progressive Christians and scrutiny from orthodox believers.
In his 2015 panel remarks, Hamilton acknowledged the difficulty of his own journey, saying that the question of how much weight to give Scripture is one that has weighed on him personally. He told the audience that the realization about cultural influences in the Bible had implications for how he reads passages often applied to same-gender relationships.
The Reformation Project, which hosted the event, was founded in 2013 by Matthew Vines, author of “God and the Gay Christian,” to encourage congregations to affirm LGBTQ members. Hamilton’s appearance at the event underscores his alignment with that cause, a stance that could prove divisive in a Kansas Republican primary but is not expected to hurt him in the Democratic primary, which he already won.
Hamilton’s campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the resurfaced video. Marshall’s campaign has not yet issued a statement, but it is likely to use the remarks as evidence that Hamilton holds views outside the mainstream of Kansas voters.
The race is being watched nationally as Democrats seek to pick up seats in the Senate, where control could hinge on a handful of competitive contests. Kansas has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1932, making Marshall a strong favorite even with the narrow polling gap.
Political analysts note that Public Policy Polling is a Democratic-leaning firm, and the “likely Republican” rating from nonpartisan forecasters suggests that while Hamilton is within striking distance, he faces an uphill climb. Still, the poll’s 1-point margin has energized Hamilton’s supporters, who argue that the race is more competitive than historical trends suggest.
For now, the focus is on Hamilton’s past statements and how they will play with voters. The 2015 video is likely to become a central piece of opposition research, and Hamilton will have to explain his views on Scripture and same-gender relationships to a broader electorate than the one he addressed in that room of pastors.
In the video, Hamilton spoke openly about the personal nature of the question, referencing his 2001 sermon series and the shift in his thinking that followed. He described the moment as a turning point, saying that the realization about the Bible’s cultural context allowed him to approach scripture in a new way.
“It really was a significant moment for me,” he said, though the full context of his remarks suggests that he was continuing to wrestle with the implications rather than declaring a final position.
As the Senate race progresses, Hamilton’s theological positions—and the 2015 video—will likely continue to generate headlines. For now, the question Hamilton posed on that panel is one he may have to answer again, this time before the voters of Kansas.
Source: www.breitbart.com — https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2026/08/15/dem-senate-candidate-pastor-hamilton-questions-where-in-bible-to-say-apostle-paul-is-wrong/