by Ariel Miller
‘Vote Faithfully’ webinar with Presiding Bishop Michael Curry Sept. 18
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry and Episcopal panelists from across the church will provide a theological perspective that centers voting as one expression of caring for one another and God’s creation. The panelists will offer framing for healthy, faith-based civic engagement, including addressing why it is important for Episcopal churches to leverage our resources to help our broader communities vote.
In an election full of increasing pressures—disinformation, the risk of political violence, disenfranchisement, environmental concerns, and more—come learn how to navigate challenges while preparing to vote in this fall’s election. Panelists will direct attendees to resources that can help you encourage your parishioners and community to vote faithfully. This event is co-hosted with The Episcopal Church Office of Government Relations. The panelists are Willie Bennett of Episcopal Health Foundation in Houston, Joyce Statz of St. Matthew’s, Austin, and Amy Coultas, Canon to the Ordinary of the Diocese of Kentucky. Alan Yarborough of the Episcopal Church Office of Government Relations will serve as moderator.
Wednesday, September 18 at 1 p.m. Register here.
Preparation opportunities for COHHIO’s Oct. 9 Advocacy Day
If your congregation is working to prevent homelessness, please send parishioners and community partners to COHHIO’s upcoming Advocacy Day to meet and build relationships with Ohio legislators with the power to pass policies that could help. COHHIO – the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio – is the major statewide non-profit advocating for affordable housing. Its managing director is the Rev. Douglas Argue, a deacon in our diocese.
The Sept. 18 Zoom session, from 11 am to 12:30, talks about the what, why, where, and how of effective advocacy. The Oct. 2 session, also from 11 to 12:30, will go over logistics and prep for the in-person visits with legislators on Oct. 9. Please sign up here.
Join Ohio Council of Churches in Faith Voter verification and registration campaign
“In July of 2024, over 155,000 voters were removed from the voter rolls in Ohio,” writes the OCC. “Nearly 100,000 of them were from Ohio’s ten major cities. These citizens WILL NOT be able to vote unless they act by updating their voter registration.” The Ohio Unity Coalition will provide training and resources for faith communities to help their members and surrounding community to register, renew, or update their registration. Oct.7 is the deadline to be able to vote in this fall’s general election, where Ohio voters will cast their votes to choose the next President, a US Senator, three Ohio Supreme Court justices, every Ohio member of the US House of Representatives, and many other elected officials. We will also vote on Issue 1, Citizens Not Politicians, a citizen-sponsored constitutional amendment to end partisan gerrymandering, which has been endorsed by the Ohio Council of Churches and the Executive Council of our diocese.
The Faith Voter Verification and Registration campaign is an initiative of the Ohio Unity Coalition, which includes the OCC, the Ohio Conference of the NAACP, and the Ohio A. Philip Randolph Institute. To sign up, contact Jadalah Aslam, jaslam@ohiounity.org or 330-727-5758. Aslam is the Operations Director of the Ohio Unity Coalition.
Election protection trainings
The Ohio Voter Rights Coalition invites you to volunteer to help ensure this year’s elections are modern, secure, and accessible to all Ohioans. The roles include poll monitors (including your county Board of Elections during early voting), social media monitoring, and serving as a peacekeeper or an Election Protection Ambassador. The trainings are online. Some are scheduled and others are on-demand. An overview of the roles, schedule, and training links are all available here.
Misinformation arousing fears about election integrity
The Speaker of the US House, Ohio’s Secretary of State, and Elon Musk are among the many influencers arousing unsubstantiated fears of voter fraud, including that non-citizens are registering en masse.
Under pressure from presidential candidate Donald Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson tried to attach a bill requiring voters to provide proof of citizenship to a continuing resolution that would prevent a government shutdown, but postponed the vote after meeting a wall of opposition from his own party.
The Washington Post reports that Musk, the owner of social media company X, retweeted a claim that as many as two million non-citizens had been registered to vote in Texas, Arizona, and Pennsylvania. The Post’s interviews with more than two dozen election officials and experts revealed that many see a correlation between his posts and a flood of demands from misinformed voters. Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, Ohio’s chief elections official, has made a number of recent public announcements raising fears of voter fraud. This includes referring to the Ohio Attorney General almost 600 cases, going back to 2019, in which people have been alleged to have registered illegally to vote. County prosecutors have acted on only a dozen cases due to insufficient evidence.
“LaRose said possible voter crimes must be prosecuted though he admits cases of it are ‘extremely rare,'” wrote Jo Ingles of the Statehouse News Bureau. “There are eight million registered voters in Ohio. LaRose’s office has raised questions about the validity of about 600 of them. But he said all cases of voter wrongdoing should be prosecuted.
“There are questions about whether Yost’s office has the legal ability to prosecute many of these cases that were referred to him because they involve possible illegal registrations, not wrongfully voting.”
LaRose has asked the Ohio Legislature to ban drop boxes, which were vital to voting safely during the pandemic, and issued a new rule further restricting who can use them. In his ruling, he wrote “as a practical matter, this means that only a voter’s personal ballot may be returned via a drop box.” Ohio HB 458, which went into effect in 2023, already prevents ballot harvesting by stating that only a postal worker or specific relatives can deliver another person’s sealed absentee ballot.
Sojourner‘s Adam Taylor defines Christian patriotism
“As a Christian, loving my country also means that I care enough about the place I call home to invest real time and effort to make it more worthy of genuine pride.” This summary, which you can post as a tweet, comes from “The US isn’t a ‘chosen nation.’ But Christians can still be patriotic,” the Sept. 5 article by Sojourner‘s president, the Rev. Adam Taylor, Here’s his central point:
“As a Christian, I believe the answer isn’t to altogether reject patriotism, but instead to redeem it. Instead of a patriotism rooted in ethno-nationalism or an imagined version of the America of days gone by, I want to live out a love for my country that refuses to demonize my opponents, rejects an us-versus-them politics, and continually commits to the project of realizing the core ideals that make us a great nation: achieving true liberty and justice for all. I yearn for a real contest of ideas, plans, and visions for how we can make the promise and creed of the U.S. real and accessible for everyone — a promise we’ve never fulfilled, but which I believe is still possible. As I argue in A More Perfect Union, “a patriotism that is blind and ahistorical poisons us all and, at worst, reasserts the lie that some Americans are the ‘true Americans’ and that some Americans are worth more than others.”
Taylor concludes: “This election season, I want Christians to reject the way patriotism has so often been framed through the false lens of Christian nationalism. Instead, I hope we can embrace a love for our country that drives us to seek to build a radically inclusive Beloved Community where everyone can thrive, where punishment and privilege aren’t tied to race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ableness, or any other type of human difference that’s been used to discriminate or divide. No political party — or religious group — should have a monopoly on patriotism. Instead of arguing over who loves our nation more, I want to see our politics become a contest of visions, ideas, and concrete plans around how we can more quickly and completely make the ideal of liberty and justice for all become a reality for all.” The article includes links to share on social media.
