{"id":32693,"date":"2026-08-20T11:59:49","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T15:59:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?p=32693"},"modified":"2026-08-20T11:59:49","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T15:59:49","slug":"christian-conservatives-blast-us-senate-candidate-umc-pastors-claim-that-atheists-will-go-to-heaven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2026\/08\/christian-conservatives-blast-us-senate-candidate-umc-pastors-claim-that-atheists-will-go-to-heaven","title":{"rendered":"Christian Conservatives Blast US Senate Candidate, UMC Pastor\u2019s Claim That Atheists Will Go to Heaven"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_32696\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-32696\" style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2026\/08\/Adam-Hamilton_credit-Church-of-the-Resurrection-YouTube.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-32696\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2026\/08\/Adam-Hamilton_credit-Church-of-the-Resurrection-YouTube.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-32696\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Church of the Resurrection \/ YouTube<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A megachurch pastor in the United Methodist Church denomination (UMC) and Democratic hopeful in the Kansas US Senate race is facing backlash after preaching that atheists and non-Christians will make it to heaven. In 2022, Adam Hamilton <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=kWfu652OGsU&amp;t=5s\">preached to his church<\/a>, the multi-campus United Methodist Church (UMC) of the Resurrection in Leawood, through a sermon entitled, \u201cWho goes to Heaven? Who goes to Hell?\u201d During the sermon, he cited 1 Timothy 2:3-6, which states that God \u201cdesires\u00a0all people to be saved and\u00a0to come to\u00a0the knowledge of the truth\u201d (ESV).<\/p>\n<p>Hamilton went further with the verse, claiming God could use His saving power to save those who didn\u2019t even know about Him. \u201cIs it not possible that there are people who love God with all their heart and love their neighbors as they love themselves, just like Jesus said with the great commandments, and God sees that and realizes that they were yearning for him even if they didn\u2019t know it?\u201d he said. \u201cAnd so, the saving grace of God through Jesus is applied to them.\u201d Hamilton suggested there will be people in Heaven that would surprise others. \u201cAnd when it comes to other faiths, I believe as a Christian that they are going to, when they get to Heaven, they\u2019re going to see Jesus and they\u2019re going to say, \u2018Oh, it was you all along that I was searching for.\u2019 But I don\u2019t fear that those folks will spend eternity in Hell.\u201d He referred to members of other faiths, including Hindus and Muslims, as \u201cGod\u2019s offspring.\u201d While admitting that \u201cnot all religions are equally valid,\u201d Hamilton pushed forward the idea that such people would ultimately see Jesus.<\/p>\n<p>The clip earned Hamilton pushback from Christian conservatives, who stated Hamilton\u2019s claims were heretical to sound Christian doctrine, which states that only direct faith in Jesus Christ leads to salvation (known as exclusivism). \u201cCommon sense will tell you that not every road will get you to the destination you want to arrive at. Kansas Senate nominee and Methodist \u2018pastor\u2019 Adam Hamilton said that God will apply Christ\u2019s saving work to people of other faiths and to atheists. This is heresy according to Jesus in John 14:6<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/colephillips\/status\/2088677599979704699\">,\u201d wrote Cole Phillips<\/a>, pastor at Connection Church in Texas. \u201cIf you reject Jesus in this life and live your life disconnected from Him, you will continue being separated from God for eternity. \u2018Welcome to Heaven, details irrelevant\u2019 theology may sound trendy, but it isn\u2019t the Gospel, and it isn\u2019t true.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hamilton\u2019s campaign pushed back at criticism while supporting his position. In a statement to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.christianpost.com\/news\/adam-hamilton-campaign-responds-to-universalism-claims.html\"><em>The Christian Post<\/em><\/a>, his campaign identified his stance as \u201cinclusivism,\u201d not \u201cuniversalism,\u201d the belief that no one will go to Hell. The statement included assertions from some of Hamilton\u2019s written works. In his book, <em>Christianity and World Religions<\/em>, Hamilton wrote, \u201cInclusivists are not saying that all religions are equally valid paths or that their teachings are all true. In addition, inclusivists do not necessarily believe that all people will be saved; they are not universalists.\u201d He defined inclusivism in his book, <em>Seeing Gray <\/em>as \u201coccup[ying] the territory between universalism and exclusivism.\u201d Yet he asserted that inclusivism was the biblical approach. \u201cIt holds that in God\u2019s mercy, God will save many who sought him although they did not understand to call upon the name of Christ. This view seems, to me, to be more consistent with the justice, mercy, and love of God revealed in Jesus Christ than the exclusivist\u2019s view.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A megachurch pastor in the United Methodist Church denomination (UMC) and Democratic hopeful in the Kansas US Senate race is facing backlash after preaching that atheists and non-Christians will make it to heaven. In 2022, Adam Hamilton preached to his church, the multi-campus United Methodist Church (UMC) of the Resurrection in Leawood, through a sermon&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":516,"featured_media":32696,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Christian Conservatives Blast US Senate Candidate, UMC Pastor\u2019s Claim That Atheists Will Go to Heaven<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Kansas US Senate hopeful Adam Hamilton faces backlash for preaching that some atheists and non-Christians may be saved through Jesus Christ.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, 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