The national evangelical group Vote Common Good swept through Ohio this week urging fellow Christians to defeat election-denying, insurrection-supporting candidates in November. 

Vote Common Good (VCG) has been trying to educate Christians about the dangers of Christian Nationalism since 2018, and while it is a nonprofit, VCG is focused on opposing Trump’s mastery over many Evangelicals.

“We are in a fight to protect our democracy from election-denying, insurrection-supporting, law and order-attacking, democracy-downgrading candidates and movements,” VCG Executive Director Doug Pagitt said. “Voters of faith can and must choose the common good, not political party, when heading to the polls this November.” 

According to Pew Research Center, 29 percent of Ohio adults identify themselves as Evangelicals. And in the heart of it all, Central Ohio is considered by many a hotbed of Evangelism, home to Rev. Rod Parsley’s World Harvest Church, for example, with a congregation over 10,000 strong.

Parsley once told (actually shouted) to his congregation, “These misguided elites will attempt to marginalize you. They’ll label you. They’ll shout at the top of their lungs that you are nothing but deplorable and smelly Walmart shoppers clinging to your guns and toting your Bible.”

VGC says it’s part of a growing campaign to mobilize voters of faith by asking them to make the common good, not the political party, the determining factor when casting votes.

Vote Common Good is a group of progressive Christian leaders from Catholic, Evangelical, and mainline Protestant backgrounds with years of experience at the intersection of faith and politics. Together, they aim to inspire, energize, and mobilize people of faith to make the common good their primary voting criteria on Election Day 2022.

On the sixth month anniversary of the Capitol insurrection, VCG, Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, and Christians Against Christian Nationalism released a curriculum designed to help pastors combat the rising threat of  Christian nationalism, and pledged to campaign to make sure the resources reach church communities nationwide. 

The curriculum, available on the Christians Against Christian Nationalism website, invites pastors and their congregations to define Christian nationalism, recognize it in their communities, and develop ways to counter it, including by highlighting Scripture passages that directly confront Christian nationalism.

The launch was part of an ongoing effort by a new coalition of pastors, academics and experts on religious extremism to counter the radicalized Christian nationalism that has spread through congregations across the country and presents a distinct and salient threat to American democracy and the integrity of the Christian faith.

This intra-community, anti-extremism effort to disavow and help stem the tide of Christian nationalism continues ahead of the midterms, as Vote Common Good travels through swing states on the FAITH, HOPE, & LOVE: NOT INSURRECTIONS AND CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM TOUR. The tour will include voter rallies, candidate trainings, billboards, and roundtable discussions.