Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Adam Hamilton once called his congregation to “repentance” for contributing to climate change, urging worshippers to reconsider their driving, fossil-fuel consumption and even the food they eat.
Hamilton, the longtime United Methodist megachurch pastor challenging Republican Sen. Roger Marshall in Kansas, made the remarks during a January 2020 sermon titled “What Would Jesus Say About Climate Change?” Fox News Digital reported.
“That’s what repentance means — I saw things differently, it changed my heart, and it changed my behavior,” Hamilton said.
Hamilton acknowledged that he had been “wasteful” before calling his congregation to respond similarly.
“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,’” he said.
Caring for God’s creation is a biblical responsibility. Genesis 2:15 says God placed Adam in the garden to tend and keep it, while Psalm 24:1 declares that the earth belongs to the Lord.
But Hamilton went beyond encouraging responsible stewardship. He employed the spiritually weighty language of repentance while advancing disputed environmental and dietary prescriptions.
In Scripture, repentance means turning away from sin and toward God. Jesus began His ministry calling people to “repent and believe the gospel” in Mark 1:15. Acts 3:19 likewise calls sinners to repent and be converted.
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Driving a vehicle, using fossil fuels or eating beef is not identified as sin in the Bible. Romans 14 warns believers against judging one another over permissible foods, while 1 Timothy 4 teaches that food created by God may be received with thanksgiving.
That distinction matters. When a pastor presents a political or environmental preference as something requiring repentance, he risks giving human ideology the authority of a divine command.
Hamilton also singled out cattle while explaining greenhouse-gas production.
“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 later urged worshippers to reduce their use of fossil fuels and consider altering their diets.
“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 are requiring less production that creates methane and carbon dioxide and everything else,” Hamilton said.
The comments are particularly striking in Kansas, the nation’s third-largest beef-producing state. Kansas has approximately 5.8 million cattle and a human population of roughly 2.9 million, according to figures cited by Fox News.
Kansas Livestock Association CEO Matt Teagarden criticized Hamilton’s remarks.
“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 told Fox News Digital.
“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,” he added.
Marshall accused Hamilton of embracing liberal policies that conflict with the values and livelihoods of Kansas residents.
“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 responded by accusing Marshall of hypocrisy, pointing to the senator’s previous support for legislation intended to reduce cattle emissions.
The sermon also fits within a broader theological conflict that has divided the United Methodist Church. More than 7,600 U.S. congregations — approximately one-quarter of the denomination’s American churches — departed between 2019 and the end of 2023.
Those departures came amid decades of conflict over biblical authority, marriage, sexuality and church doctrine. In 2024, the United Methodist Church removed its denomination-wide prohibitions on same-sex weddings and the ordination of practicing LGBTQ clergy.
For Bible-believing Christians, Hamilton’s climate sermon reflects a dangerous pattern: Clear biblical teachings are discarded or redefined while progressive political priorities are elevated to matters of sin, righteousness and repentance.
Responsible stewardship honors God. Using the pulpit to place debatable climate policies and dietary choices beneath the authority of biblical repentance does not. Christians must recognize when the language of Scripture is being used to give political ideology an appearance of divine authority.
James Lasher, a seasoned writer and editor at Charisma Media, combines faith and storytelling with a journalism background from Otterbein University and ministry experience in Guatemala and at the LA Dream Center. A Marine Corps and Air Force veteran, he is the author of The Revelation of Jesus: A Common Man’s Commentary and a contributor to Charisma magazine. For interviews and media inquiries, please contact [email protected].
