Practical Faith

It’s always dangerous to lead an opinion column with numbers but bear with me. Fifty-two days until the Kansas Primary election. Advance voting begins in 32 days. One of eleven Democrats will win that election and take on incumbent GOP Sen. Roger Marshall in the fall. 

I’ve invited all credible Democratic candidates to appear on my live KMAN radio talk show/recorded podcast. One of the advantages of having achieved semi-retirement is I get to define credibility. My definition encompasses a combination of judgment borne from experience, campaign aesthetics, and arithmetic. 

So far, Christy Davis, Erik Murray, Anne Parelkar, and Sandy Spidel Neumann have appeared, with a couple of others on the schedule.

Some of my Johnson County friends are downright gooey over Adam Hamilton, pastor of the mega Church of the Resurrection. While the church serves as a spiritual home for thousands and a leading voice within Methodism, I don’t see Hamilton’s candidacy as an extension of the church itself so much as an extension of the church’s mission. It echoes John Wesley’s challenge to “do all the good you can, by all the means you can...”

It’s a tradition not immune to the culture wars. Methodists these days are living through a massive denominational schism over LGBTQ+ inclusion and same sex marriage. More than 100 United Methodist churches in Kansas have already jumped ship.

Well, maybe not all the good you can.    

As the one-time president of the Pleasant Valley Methodist Youth Fellowship (ca. 1975 in Wichita), I have the bona fides to weigh in. MYF was designed to set teenage Methodists on the straight and narrow, though my redemption-seeking tended to take a back seat to chasing girls. My job was to call the meeting to order and decide which songs to sing. Our songbooks were hand-me-downs from the Pepsi Generation, so a handful of Vietnam protest tunes were in the mix.

Dylan’s cannonballs keep flying, which suggests the answer wasn’t blowin’ in the wind after all, it was stuck in committee.

I’m still working with Hamilton’s team to lock in an appearance. I don’t think they’re dodging me, though from a raw, blatant political strategy perspective, he may not need votes in the Flint Hills region to win.

Arithmetic alone makes Hamilton the front runner. More numbers: With eleven candidates, a useful rule of thumb in a crowded primary is a candidate can win with somewhere between 25 and 35 percent of the vote. If the Kansas Democratic primary turns out 200,000 voters, winning with 25 percent requires 50,000 votes. Hamilton’s congregation numbers 24,000. If they all vote for him, he’s halfway home before rolling out of bed in the parsonage.

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Hamilton’s theological positions often put him at odds with some of the MAGA crowd. He has supported women’s ordination, taken inclusive positions toward LGBTQ+ Christians, emphasized racial justice, and frequently argued that faith should engage social issues rather than focus exclusively on personal morality.

Methodists also embrace prevenient grace — the belief that God is already at work in our lives, subtly nudging us toward truth, goodness, and each other before we realize it. Think of it as a divinely texted “OMW” before you even ask for a ride.

Applied politically, Hamilton’s campaign reflects a similar belief: that Kansans are more than their partisan labels, that common ground can still be found, that persuasion remains possible. Rather than casting opponents as enemies, a Wesleyan approach seeks to draw out the best in people and build bridges across divisions.

Is that possible in the Trump era? Is Adam Hamilton tilting at windmills? Blowin’ in the wind?

We chase the second thought on my talk show, based on my experience that more thinking is better. It appears Hamilton’s already there. That’s why I’m eager to visit with him on the air. Maybe he’ll read this column and accept my invitation.

Think of it as a subtle nudge.

Before he was a semi-retired talk show host and columnist, Mike Matson was a Kansas political operative. His column appears every other weekend in The Mercury, and he hosts ‘Within Reason,’ Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at 9 a.m. on NewsRadio KMAN.