Ministers Write Letter Urging GOP Senator to Stop Targeting His Opponent's Faith

More than a hundred United Methodist ministers across Kansas have put their names on

a letter asking Republican Sen. Roger Marshall to change how he talks about his opponent, Adam Hamilton, a pastor whose ministry has become a target on the campaign trail.

The letter, drafted by a Wichita pastor and signed by 120 clergy statewide, is addressed to Marshall personally. They said: "When you attack Adam's pastoral ministry, his home congregation, and our denomination as a whole, you sow seeds of division and dissent. You tear at the fabric that is the body of Christ."

The ministers note that their own pews hold both Marshall voters and Hamilton voters, and that after Election Day, all of those people will be worshiping side by side in the same churches.

One of the signers, Amy Lippoldt, senior pastor of Wichita First United Methodist Church, was in the audience at the Kansas State Fair debate the Saturday before the letter went out. She said she listened as Marshall went after Hamilton's work as a pastor, and that his criticism extended beyond Hamilton to United Methodists broadly.

"Christians attacking other Christians for their faith doesn't get us anywhere," Lippoldt said.

Lippoldt said she wants her congregation to be a place where everyone is welcome and where politics stays at the door. Setting differences aside, she said, is part of what Christians are called to do, and how people speak to each other about their disagreements matters.

Asked about the letter, Marshall said he had not read it.