How Adam Hamilton Built a Megachurch Where People Can Disagree
The curious part of this story is the premise itself: a megachurch that treats disagreement as a feature rather than a flaw. Most religious institutions, and most political campaigns, run on the opposite logic. Hamilton apparently built a congregation of thousands in Kansas where people who hold different views on everything from theology to politics can sit in the same room and listen to each other. That's a rare enough thing that it makes me wonder if the method scales.
I think the real test comes when he steps onto the campaign trail. A church where people disagree is one thing; a political race where the whole point is to defeat someone is another. The skills that make a good pastor of a diverse congregation, patience, humility, the willingness to hold your own views loosely, those don't obviously translate to winning an election in a polarized district.
I'd want to know how many of his nonreligious attendees actually show up to vote for him, and whether the openness he practices in the sanctuary survives contact with attack ads and party pressure. The story matters because it's a live experiment in whether a public figure can be both principled and genuinely tolerant, and that's a question we could use more answers to.