A progressive megachurch pastor seeking to oust Republican Senator Roger Marshall in deep-red Kansas once urged his flock to repent for eating beef and raising cattle, placing himself squarely at odds with one of the states most vital industries and cultural touchstones.
According to The Post Millennial, Adam Hamilton, the Democratic nominee challenging Marshall, leads one of the largest Methodist congregations in the United States and has used his pulpit to press an aggressive climate-change agenda. In a 2020 sermon titled What would Jesus say about climate change? Hamilton framed environmental activism as a spiritual obligation, telling congregants that That's what repentance means I saw things differently, it changed my heart, and it changed my behavior.
Hamilton went further, openly confessing his own supposed environmental failings while calling on parishioners to follow his lead in altering their lifestyles. 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, he said, adding, 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.
Over the course of the 44-minute sermon, Hamilton singled out cattle a backbone of Kansas economy and identity as a significant contributor to climate change. 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, he declared, concluding, And so, in all of these ways, we are creating or adding to the amount of greenhouse gases in our world.
His remarks directly clash with the realities of Kansas life, where ranching and beef production are not only economic engines but multigenerational family livelihoods. Kansas is the nations third-largest producer of beef, and there are more beef cattle in the state than people, according to Fox News, making Hamiltons rhetoric sound less like pastoral guidance and more like a rebuke of his own neighbors way of life.
Leaders in the livestock industry have pushed back, arguing that Hamiltons sermon misrepresents both the role of beef in the American diet and its actual environmental footprint. It is disappointing that a candidate for the U.S. Senate in Kansas, one of the nations top beef-producing states, would make a statement like this to his parishioners about beefs impact on the climate, Kansas Livestock Association Chief Executive Officer Matt Teagarden said, adding, 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.
Hamilton, however, urged his congregation to embrace lifestyle changes that align with the priorities of the environmental left, including altering what they eat. He told churchgoers they must do everything they can to reduce your own usage of fossil fuels, but maybe changing your diet so that the things that you eat are requiring less production that creates methane and carbon dioxide and everything else.
Senator Marshall, a Republican who has consistently defended Kansas agriculture and opposed heavy-handed climate mandates, blasted Hamiltons comments as out of touch with the state he hopes to represent. 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 hed be just like every other liberal Democrat in the Senate, Marshall told Fox News in response to the report.
The clash between the two candidates highlights a broader national divide between progressive climate orthodoxy and rural, agriculture-based communities that bear the brunt of regulatory schemes crafted in Washington and coastal cities. The National Republican Senatorial Committee's national press secretary Bernadette Breslin told The Post Millennial: Kansas hasnt sent a Democrat to the Senate in nearly 100 years, and with Adam Hamilton condemning Kansans for their carbon footprint and cattle for their emissions, hes ensuring that streak continues for another 100.
Login