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The biblical story of Esther, the Jewish orphan who became queen and bravely saved her people, has been a potent symbol for women and girls, a call to lead a life of courage, sacrifice and purpose.
Sojourner Truth invoked Esther as she fought for women’s rights and civil rights. Hillary Clinton, when running for president in 2008, named Esther’s story as a favorite. And prominent Black pastors have used her story to galvanize support for Vice President Kamala Harris as she seeks the White House.
On Saturday at the National Mall in Washington, the queen’s story is being marshaled once again, this time by a group of conservative and largely charismatic Christians, who drew hundreds of followers to “A Million Women: an Esther Call to the Mall.”
They hope to mobilize conservative Christian women, just weeks before the election, to turn America back to God — and toward issues they care about, which also align with former President Trump’s presidential campaign. Their goals include ending abortion, opposing transgender rights and supporting Israel.
“We just believe that there’s a crisis,” said Laura Zavala Allred, an organizer of the event. God, she said, has called modern-day Esthers “for such a time as this,” referencing the story’s most well-known phrase.
The morning began with a crowd of participants gathering and praying. Many waved flags that said, “Don’t mess with our kids” and “Jesus.” Organizers chose to hold the event on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in Judaism, because it is a day to atone for sin.
Ronda Lamont, a rally participant who traveled from Fort Worth, Texas, and claimed that attempts at voting fraud were widespread, said that issue and “sexual sins” were among the main reasons that motivated her to travel to Washington. “The enemy has taken over the world,” she said. “It’s the end times.”
In the grand scheme of politics, such an event might seem minor. Only about a fourth of the area reserved for the event was filled. But the gathering is the latest example of how partisan politics and Christian worship have blended in recent years. And it reflects the rising charismatic Christian movement, which sees world events as part of a cosmic battle between good and evil. With Esther as a touchstone, these Christian women, of different racial and ethnic backgrounds, are casting themselves as key players in a contemporary political and religious drama.
Only two books in the Bible, Esther and Ruth, are named after women. And Esther is the only book that does not name God. Instead, redemption comes through her actions.
In the story, Esther is an orphan and beautiful young woman, cared for by a relative named Mordecai, while the Jews are exiled in ancient Persia. The king, who is angry at his wife, picks Esther as his new queen. But she does not reveal she is Jewish.
When the king issues an edict to kill all the Jews, Mordecai begs Esther to intervene. “Who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?” he says. Afraid, she asks the Jews to fast for her success, saying, “If I perish, I perish.” In the end, she saves her people.
Jews remember Esther during the holiday of Purim. Yet religious scholars note that over centuries, her story has been widely embraced because anyone can see themselves in Esther.
“How do you know that you are not alive in this moment to do something extraordinary?” said Erica Brown, vice provost at Yeshiva University, who has studied Esther. “There’s something much larger in life for her than the beauty queen role.”
Even in the darkest of times, her story suggests, hope comes from the unlikeliest places and people, even an orphan.
But that universal story can also lead to divergent interpretations. For some conservative Christians, Esther offers a model of what they see as appropriate female leadership. The Esthers, as the women organizing the event in Washington call themselves, cite the queen to amplify their own voice — and define feminism on their terms — at a moment when progressive women have been newly energized by the end of Roe v. Wade, and the prospect of the first female president.
Dehavilland Ford, a pastor in Fort Worth, Texas, led a six-month study of the book of Esther by Zoom this year for women interested in preparing for the Washington gathering.
For Ms. Ford, the story is one that every woman can relate to in some way. “She’s an orphan, she’s hiding her identity, she’s a woman,” she explained. The story suggests that “not one woman is disqualified from the calling of God.”
The Washington gathering for Esther was organized primarily around prayer and fasting, but politics and social issues are integral to those prayers. At least one local Republican group from Virginia publicized the event.
Folake Kellogg, 52, had dreams of women rising up like Esther and fighting for their families, which prompted her to fly from Washington state to be part of the event.
She was horrified when Planned Parenthood offered free abortion medication at a mobile clinic near the Democratic National Convention. “As a Black African,” she said, referencing her Nigerian heritage, she stood for the opposite. “The Esthers are ones with compassion for life.”
“I am not going to be voting for someone that is having abortion that is on demand, I am not going to be voting for same-sex marriage,” she said. “I am voting because I am an extension of God’s kingdom.”
The longtime activist and evangelist Lou Engle, who organized the Washington event, has invoked the queen in some of his large prayer gatherings and calls to fast for specific political outcomes. In 2018, he asked his followers to participate in an “Esther Fast” for the end of Roe v. Wade. After the 2020 election, he urged Christians to fast “for the exposure of voter fraud.” In July, after Ms. Harris became the Democratic nominee, Mr. Engle called on Esthers to rise up, because “witches worldwide are cursing President Trump.”
A spokesman said Mr. Engle, who was nearing the end of a 40-day fast, was not available for an interview. But Mark Gonzales, who leads the Hispanic Action Network and is the executive director for the Esther event, said that mothers are pushing back against the campaign for transgender rights.
“When they begin to touch the children, the mothers begin to rise up,” he said. And in this battle, it is not only about the Esthers, he added. Men like him are key.
“There wouldn’t be an Esther if there hadn’t been a Mordecai,” he said.
Another organizer, Jenny Donnelly, 49, an activist, evangelist and mother of five from Washington state, also said she has been thinking about Mordecai, specifically when he asked Esther to risk her life for her people. Once Esther assumed her role as queen, Ms. Donnelly said, Mordecai pushed her to use it for good.
To Ms. Donnelly, that story offers a lesson about leadership. She wants a movement that does not strip women of their power. At the same time, she said, she wants to see “a women’s movement that does not disregard the place of men and strip them of their power.”
Esther also speaks to Ms. Donnelly personally, as a story of redemption from trauma. Esther was an orphan; Ms. Donnelly’s own father left the family when she was 6.
And just as Esther acted during a crisis, Ms. Donnelly said she was called to activism during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, when she watched schools and churches shut down in her hometown, Portland, Ore.
Today, she is worried about the number of Gen Z adults identifying as L.G.B.T.Q. and fears a future in which parents lose rights to their children if they oppose gender transitions.
Esther’s story asks, “What if?” Ms. Donnelly said. “What if this whole crazy traumatic story is because you are going to actually save the Jews?”
Minho Kim contributed reporting.
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