I first became aware of far-right Christians co-opting the Book of Esther for political ends when I heard the extremist group Moms for Liberty use Esther 4:14 as its slogan. Since then, the phrase “for such a time as this” has become a rallying cry for aggrieved Christian extremists captivated by revenge fantasies.
At the same time, the biblical characters of Queen Esther and Mordecai are being remade and recast in dizzying ways. From the Heritage Foundation’s recently released “Project Esther” to the controversial Texas Bible-infused curriculum, the tropes embodied by Esther and Mordecai are being used in often-contradictory ways by different Christian sects within the far-right movement.
Notably, how Esther’s story is appropriated hinges on three things:
– The gender of the speaker
– The gender of the person being referred to as an Esther
– The degree to which the Christian co-opting her embraces charismatic Christianity (the movement that seeks out and fosters the supernatural expressions of the faith)
Yet, rather than thinking of each of these sects as isolated and their use of Esther as siloed, I have found it more helpful to think of each group as a small stream winding through our national religious and political landscapes. Sometimes these streams diverge; at other times they converge into the raging river we’ve variously labeled Christian extremism, Christian nationalism and Christofascism.
The first stream: Queen Esther as a model Christian woman
Queen Esther often is used by noncharismatic, far-right Christians as a model of Christian womanhood, which is ironic given that she is Jewish. This trope is played out in both denominational and nondenominational church spaces.
In her 1988 book, The Secret of a Woman’s Influence, Joyce Rogers — whose husband, Adrian Rogers, was a key player in the fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention — wrote of Esther’s authority, “Queen Esther saved an entire nation but she did so by being UNDER AUTHORITY” (original emphasis).
Specifically, Rogers makes the point that Esther was under the authority of Mordecai who authorized her courageous act. Given the SBC’s full embrace of complementarianism and the exclusion of women from positions of authority, Rogers’ 1988 stance on Esther’s source of authority is unsurprising. Esther is a model woman whose influence is limited to that granted by the men in her life.
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Similarly, in 2005 Diana Hagee — whose husband, John Hagee, founded the nondenominational megachurch Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas — used Esther as a model to teach teenage girls ages 13 to 19 how to become “women of God.” In an article she authored for Charisma magazine titled “How to Claim Your Place as a King’s Daughter,” Hagee discussed her 12-week series that was being taught to hundreds of teenage girls in order to prepare them to be good, Christian women.
The mold offered to these girls was of an Esther who prepared herself to be pleasing to the king and then stepped into the authority given to her. Hagee’s course recast Esther as the bride of Christ who prepared her body and soul for total submission.
More recently, Texas’ new Reading Language Arts curriculum for kindergarten through fifth grade includes a lesson for second graders on Queen Esther. In this retelling of the Esther story, she is lifted up as a model woman “fighting for a cause” alongside Mordecai: “Because of Mordecai and Esther’s willingness to stand up for their people and their beliefs, they were able to save the Jewish people living in Persia. They fought for what they knew was right and made a difference that not only affected the Jews of Persia but also Jewish people today.”
The authors of the curriculum frame Esther’s bravery as dependent on Mordecai. Once again, Queen Esther is a model for Christian girls to emulate particularly because she is under the authority and influence of male figures.
A brief history of Christian extremism and spiritual warfare
While noncharismatic Christians use Queen Esther as a model for Christian complementarianism and the preparation of young girls to be brides, charismatic Christians use her in an entirely different way — one that provides a model for those seeking to engage in spiritual warfare.
Before explaining that, we need to talk about spiritual warfare.
Matthew D. Taylor is a religious studies scholar with the Institute for Islamic, Christian and Jewish Studies. He also is an expert on independent charismatic Christianity. In his new book, The Violent Take it By Force, and the recent audio-documentary series produced by the “Straight White American Jesus” podcast, Taylor offers a deep dive into the lineage and practices of the charismatics influencing Christian nationalism in the United States today.
Our present moment actually began in the early 1980s with a Fuller Seminary professor named C. Peter Wagner. In 1982, Wagner, a leader in the church growth movement, created a course with John Wimber, leader of the Vineyard church movement, called “Signs, Wonders and Church Growth.” In the class, students were introduced to unorthodox charismatic practices like how to perform healings and how to cast out demons.
The class drew large crowds and four years later, Fuller Seminary became concerned with how the class was affecting its reputation within the evangelical world. The course was canceled, but the seeds of the new spiritual warfare movement had been planted.
Shortly thereafter, Wagner met Cindy Jacobs, a leader in the Independent Charismatic movement, which is rooted in nondenominational megachurches. In meeting Jacobs, Wagner moved into more extreme religious spaces — focused primarily on “spiritual warfare.” In his book, Taylor defines spiritual warfare as “the theological idea that demons are bent on attacking Christians, who must resist these malign spiritual forces through prayer and other spiritual disciplines.”
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Throughout the 1990s, Jacobs and Wagner developed and disseminated a robust demonology that proposed “behind the low-level, personally harassing demons that most believers battled through spiritual warfare were high-level demon commanders and generals — the mysterious ‘principalities’ and ‘powers’” mentioned in Ephesians 6:12.
Wagner called these high-level demons “territorial spirits” and promoted the idea that these demons “controlled literal geographical territories or human institutions.” Together, Wagner and Jacobs went on to develop “a framework called ‘strategic-level spiritual warfare’ that was meant to overpower and displace these territorial spirits.”
For those of us raised in noncharismatic Christian traditions, this all sounds kooky. There is a reason this movement existed on the fringes of Christianity for such a long time.
Eventually, Jacobs and Wagner went on to influence an entire generation of charismatics. Today, those charismatic Christians believe they are conducting strategic-level spiritual warfare against evil people and institutions within our own government. Many of them who identify as “prophets” and “spirit warriors” were present at the January 6 insurrection blowing shofars and leading prayers while rioters erected gallows and stormed the Capitol searching for the vice president and members of Congress to murder.
The second stream: Queen Esther as spiritual warrior
That sets the stage to understand the second stream of contemporary influence.
The earliest online source I could find connecting Queen Esther and spiritual warfare is a March 2000 article in Charisma magazine, which bills itself as “the leading charismatic media source.” The article was penned by Rebecca Wagner Systema, daughter of C. Peter Wagner, and Chuck D. Pierce, who was mentored by both Peter Wagner and Cindy Jacobs in the 1980s and 1990s.
In the article, “God’s Call to Women to Change the World,” Systema and Pierce issue a prophecy that women will play a major role in the spiritual battles of the new millennium. “God also needs women who have been disciplined and prepared ‘for such a time as this’ (Esther 4:14). … Women who have been prepared by God will have the faith and boldness to overthrow the determined destruction of the enemy and lay the foundation for the future of the kingdom.”
Systema and Pierce then go on to offer an interpretation of the book of Esther in which Queen Esther’s 12 months of preparation before seeing the king relates to women of today wishing to enter into spiritual warfare:
That preparation consisted of two phases, one in which oil of myrrh was used and one in which beautiful perfumes were applied. The myrrh represented endured bitterness that ultimately produced a beautiful fragrance. After six months of wearing oil of myrrh, the woman was then given perfumes and other beautifiers that would enhance her appeal to the king. After this extensive preparation, Esther appeared before the king and found favor in his sight. Soon she was exalted to the royal position of queen. Today, women of faith can also gain great favor if they allow the anointing of God to rest upon them and the beauty of holiness to surround them. If pain, pressure and bitterness can be endured and transformed into the beautiful fragrance of Christ, women can have great influence in days ahead. In fact, I believe we are now seeing a generation of women arise that exemplifies the character of Esther. Today godly, obedient, grace-filled women are being positioned to overthrow the enemies of the future!
After the 2000 Systema and Pierce article connecting Esther with spiritual warfare, charismatic media followed suit, producing hundreds of books, podcasts, courses, blogs and more recasting the book of Esther as a secret how-to manual for battling demonic forces in the world. What is most important about this stream of Christian extremism and its appropriation of Esther is the way it introduces the demonic into the physical world.
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Because charismatics — especially those not bound by denominational traditions — see the demonic as a physical presence in the world, they also see the necessity for a physical response. Behind every person, institution and act, they see demons at work — demons they are anointed by God to defeat.
One blog on spiritual warfare finds within the book of Esther a verse-by-verse strategy for waging war. The warrior is to:
- Be called and submitted to God above even man’s laws (4:14-16)
- Prepare spiritually through prayer and fasting (Esther 4:16)
- Prepare through praise and worship by putting on “garments of praise,” our “royal robes” (Esther 5:1-2; Esther 7:1-2)
- Be led by the Holy Spirit especially as to timing (three days of fasting and prayer, waiting in the inner court, first banquet, then second banquet)
- Use intercession; weeping; wailing; fasting (Esther 8:3)
- Wait on the king’s word and permission (Esther 8:7-8)
- Write the decree according to the leading of the Holy Spirit (Esther 8:8-9) “You yourselves write a decree.” Queen Esther WITH Mordecai together i.e. the Bride of Christ WITH the Holy Spirit!
- Proclaim the decree. (Esther 8:10-14) Perhaps this is where many Christians lose their victory because they do not proclaim aloud the Word of God!
- Celebrate the victory beforehand! (Esther 8:16-17) Ah, that shows faith in God!
- “The violent take it by force.” (Esther 9:1) (Matt 11:12) Of course, this “violence” is in the Spirit! (Eph 6:10-18). Act on the proclamation.
While the above states, “Of course, this ‘violence’ is in the Spirit!” some calls to engage in spiritual warfare do so by calling for physical violence to the temporal realm.
In his testimony to the House Select January 6 Committee and in his contribution to the report “Christian Nationalism and the January 6, 2021 Insurrection,” Andrew Seidel cites public calls from prominent nondenominational “prophets” for individuals to bring the spiritual battle to the physical realm:
Others, such as Lance Wallnau, the father of American Dominionism, also framed the fight to overturn the election as a spiritual war. “Fighting with Trump is fighting with God,” he declared. This warfare rhetoric was tinged with violence — stochastic terrorism — that increased leading up to January 6. Said Wallnau, “We got to get some of that energy over there on our side. Because we need a couple of risk takers, and, you know, stir-things up evangelists and revivalists and prophets, because I’m telling you, these angels want something to do, and they’re looking for some wildcards that are gonna go start something up.”
Many of those at the Capitol on January 6 participated in what they deemed to be spiritual warfare that day.
There is so much material connecting Esther to spiritual warfare available on the internet. By far, using the Book of Esther to feed the belief in spiritual warfare is the most prolific recasting of her story. And this charismatic co-opting of Queen Esther as a spiritual warrior feeds into a related reframing of her story — that of a political revolutionary overthrowing evil systems.
Billy Graham with Al Mohler on the day of Mohler’s inauguration as seminary president. The banners in the background reads, “For such a time as this.”
The third stream: Queen Esther as God’s agent of change
While both noncharismatic and charismatic Christian women are cast as Esthers, noncharismatic and charismatic Christian men are, more recently, also being cast in the role of Esther. However, while women cast as Esther receive their authority from the men cast as the male characters of the story, when men are cast as Esther, there are no gendered limitations on the source of their authority.
The male Esthers are presented as receiving their authority from God. They are God’s divine disruptors and through God’s divine providence they have been “raised up” to overturn the status quo.
Take, for example, Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. His first convocation speech in August 1993 titled “Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There” came during a contentious period within the SBC as fundamentalists sought to solidify their control of the sect and its accompanying seminaries and institutions. While Mohler never mentions Esther by name in the speech, the message is clear that he and the other (male) fundamentalists are anointed by God to right the “ungodly” and “unbiblical” path the SBC had been on.
Other publicity of Mohler’s inauguration as president was framed with the exact wording of Esther, casting him as a new leader “for such a time as this.”
In a documentary produced in 2013 at his 20-year anniversary leading the seminary, Mohler is framed as “the man who was used by God to lead Southern Seminary back to its roots” and one who “was born to be president of Southern Seminary,” which was “the most natural thing in the world. It was predestined to happen.”
More recently, charismatic Christian men also have been cast as Esther to demonstrate God’s anointing in both their spiritual and physical battles against evil.
U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) speaks to reporters in the spin room following the CNN Presidential Debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump June 27 in Atlanta. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
In October 2023, U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted and Christian extremist Representative Jim Jordan was nominated to the position. In her nomination speech, House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik invoked Esther when speaking of Jordan: “As this body convenes for the sacred responsibility to elect the next speaker of the People’s House, I am reminded of the book of Esther: ‘for such a time as this.’ Jim Jordan will be America’s speaker ‘for such a time as this.’”
Jordan eventually withdrew from consideration and Louisiana Southern Baptist Mike Johnson was elected. In his acceptance speech, he, too, invoked Esther:
I want to tell all my colleagues here what I told the Republicans in that room last night. I don’t believe there are any coincidences in a manner like this. I believe that Scripture, the Bible is very clear that God is the one that raises up those in authority. He raised up each of you, all of us, and I believe that God has ordained and allowed each one of us to be brought here for this specific moment in this time. This is my belief.
Although Southern Baptists generally reject the idea of spiritual warfare, Johnson spends a great deal of time with nondenominational charismatics and is fluent in the jargon. He launched the Christian extremist “National Gathering for Prayer and Repentance” which is meant to counter the more ecumenical 89-year-old National Prayer Breakfast.
The National Gathering for Prayer and Repentance in February 2024 featured a lineup of extreme charismatic leaders — many of whom were present at the January 6 insurrection. In speeches and prayers, members of Congress and these charismatic “prophets” blended calls for spiritual warfare with affirmations of their “anointing” to course-correct the U.S. They petitioned fellow Christians to “tie the hands of Satan” and to “bind the demonic forces” while proclaiming Christians “have been given legal power and authority from heaven” to govern our country.
The book of Esther from Jewish perspectives
In researching this article, I spoke with Elsie R. Stern, professor of Bible at Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, about how she teaches the book of Esther to rabbinical students. There are a multitude of interpretations she discusses with her students.
In the Talmud (a collection of centuries of Jewish rabbinical writings) the longest running interpretation of a biblical text is on the Book of Esther. The Talmud includes commentary on Gentile men’s fascination with Jewish women and how Jewish women fit into that. There’s an interesting parallel with this Jewish reading and the one offered by noncharismatic Christians who hold up Esther as the model woman.
Another reading of the text is as a cautionary tale about life in the diaspora where everything is topsy-turvy. In Judea, God makes the law, the law is unchanging, and the holidays come from God. Meanwhile in the diaspora, there are man-made laws, laws are changing and Mordecai and Esther invent a holiday. In this case, Stern reads the book of Esther as a dark comedy and as a warning about what happens when one moves away from the Jewish faith.
A third reading of the text is as a revenge fantasy constructed by an oppressed people. This reading ties with other revenge fantasies within the book of Deuteronomy. In this case, Jews today have to wrestle with their ancestors’ desire for revenge.
As Stern points out, revenge fantasies serve a psychological function and are useful when people are powerless. However, today the Jewish people have to struggle with a different set of power dynamics than in centuries past. When reading biblical revenge fantasies, “when you do have the power to enact them, I think a sacred way of reading those texts is they allow us to see and acknowledge those feelings of rage and actually invite us to exercise imaginative and cathartic discharges as opposed to real political discharges.”
Stern reiterated that the hyperbolic violence contained in the book of Esther allows for the imaginative “off-gassing of a Jewish sense of grievance.” This was especially true in the Middle Ages when the Festival of Purim included burning effigies of Haman and raucous behavior.
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During our conversation, I was reminded of the 1940 book Rabelais and His World by Russian philosopher and literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin. In it, Bakhtin explores the function of carnival, raucousness and the grotesque as mediators of social stability in the works of the French Renaissance writer François Rabelais.
Following my conversation with Stern, I also spoke with David Stern, senior rabbi at Temple Emanu-El in Dallas (and Elsie Stern’s brother). I wanted to know from the pastoral perspective how, as a rabbi, he teaches about the book of Esther in Temple.
Rabbi Stern confirmed the carnivalesque nature of Purim and the Book of Esther:
The Book of Esther in Jewish community and culture is linked almost exclusively to the holiday of Purim. Which means it is linked almost exclusively to a sort of carnivalesque party with drinking and costumes. It’s like, you know, Jewish Mardi Gras. … The only time it’s read in the lectionary cycle is at Purim. And it’s read at Purim always in some hilarious fashion. There’s a widespread custom to read it as quickly as possible. There are other times where, you know, the people reading it are often in costume.
Rabbi Stern pointed out that in the congregation’s reading of the book of Esther at Purim, they don’t read the revenge chapter. And the service is followed by an outdoor children’s carnival.
How different this understanding is from those readings offered by Christian extremists today.
Looking ahead: Countering Christian extremist rhetoric about Esther
The streams of right-wing Christianity in America have merged into a Christian extremist movement intent on flooding our country’s political and religious landscapes.
Recently, the spiritual warfare trope of Esther was used by Christian extremist Greg Laurie, who said he believes “God has placed President Trump in office for such a time as this.” Laurie then went on to deploy a common Christian extremist argument against the separation of church and state. Referring to the letters exchanged between Thomas Jefferson and the Danbury Baptists, Laurie said:
That was in a letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to a particular person who asked about this. It was not in any of the documents, the founding documents of our nation. And the objective of Jefferson in writing on that particular topic was to keep the government out of the church, not to keep the church out of government. We as Christians must permeate, we must saturate our culture.
Undoubtedly, Christian extremists are looking to the new administration to further obliterate the separation of church and state. They will use the language of Scripture and the rhetoric of spiritual warfare to further their cause. And they will continue to speak about being “raised up for such a time as this” in order to create the theocracy they seek.
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As a Baptist within the historical Baptist/Anabaptist tradition, I affirm the four freedoms our spiritual ancestors died for: Bible freedom, soul freedom, church freedom and religious freedom. I affirm those freedoms even for the Christian extremists whose interpretations of Scripture I vehemently disagree with.
But as any child knows, with freedom comes responsibility. The four freedoms come with a responsibility to constantly and prayerfully study Scripture and biblical interpretation within a faith community that is committed to the same freedoms.
The Christian extremists do not hold the final say on biblical interpretation, and when they speak as though they do, they are committing heresy. We must be unafraid to say so. Instead, we must boldly and loudly call-out their co-opting of religious tropes for their political ends.
This article was originally published at Baptist News Global, a reader-supported, independent news organization providing original and curated news, opinion and analysis about matters of faith. You can sign up for their newsletter here. Republished with permission.
