When She Becomes Esther

By Elizabeth Neumann, who is a national security expert, violence prevention advocate, and the author of Kingdom of Rage: The Rise of Christian Extremism and the Path Back to Peace. A former Assistant Secretary for Counterterrorism at the Department of Homeland Security, she writes about faith, public life, and the work of renewal at Courageous Faith.

Her substack is:

Website: ElizabethNeumann.org

Since writing Kingdom of Rage, I have been wrestling with what it looks like in practice to “seek the peace and prosperity of the city” (Jer. 29:7, NIV). It is how I closed the book, challenging readers to be peacemakers and love their neighbors in the public square.

Christians already bless their communities in countless ways: tutoring youth, fostering and adopting children, serving people experiencing homelessness, and caring for the sick. But I have been pondering a more specific question: Is there a way to engage faithfully in civic and political life without succumbing to the temptations of power and control? Can we participate without being motivated by fear, but instead by genuine love for our neighbors, including those we regard as the “other”? And if there is such a way, who are the women who might respond to that call?

Katie Gaddini’s Esther’s Army: The Christian Women Who Power the American Right explores the Christian women who are already active in the public square. Through ethnographic research, Gaddini examines what draws women into conservative politics, the relationships and institutions that sustain their involvement, and the stories through which they understand themselves and the world.

Gaddini, like me, grew up in conservative Christian culture. Although she no longer identifies as a conservative or a Christian, she has spent ten years trying to understand what happened to her community. I share that pursuit, as well as the emotions she describes in her epilogue: “puzzlement,” a “sense of betrayal,” and the lingering question, “How did they end up there and I ended up here?”^[1] When we love and have been loved by a community, we desperately want to understand how we came to see the world so differently.

One of Gaddini’s contributions is showing that the Christian right is not monolithic. She profiles six groups of women whose paths into conservative politics differ considerably—from College Idealists who found belonging in conservative institutions after experiencing ridicule or cancellation, to Mama Bears activated by perceived threats to their children, to BLEXITers who reject the expectation that racial identity should determine political allegiance. She also examines the influencers and powerhouses who help create and sustain the broader ecosystem of the Christian right.

These women are not interchangeable. Many do not even understand the other factions operating within the same political coalition. Yet across their stories, Gaddini identifies recurring experiences of humiliation, uncertainty, fear, and loss of control, alongside deeply human desires for belonging, significance, protection, and purpose.

The critical question is what kind of story organizes those experiences. Who is cast as the hero? Who becomes the villain? And what actions begin to appear necessary when an ordinary political conflict is transformed into a sacred struggle for survival?

This is where I began to feel alarmed. My professional field is counterterrorism, and for the past decade much of my work has focused on preventing the statistically rare occurrence of targeted violence and terrorism. Let me be clear: none of the groups or individual women profiled in Esther’s Army exhibit behavior suggesting a pathway to violence. Most people who hold polarizing or even extremist beliefs never commit violence.

My concern lies elsewhere. Across these groups, I recognized narratives that can create fertile ground for extremist beliefs.

I use J. M. Berger’s definition of extremism: “the belief that an in-group’s success or survival can never be separated from the need for hostile action against an out-group.”^[2] He emphasizes that hostile action exists on a spectrum. It can begin with bullying, harassment, and discrimination. At its most severe, it includes hate crimes, terrorism, and genocide.

Reaching the point where hostile action feels necessary requires a story. It often begins with real or perceived grievances blamed on an out-group. Eventually, that group is framed as an existential threat. Extraordinary action then begins to appear justified, even righteous.^[3]

No analogy illustrates this danger better than the inspiration for the title of Gaddini’s book: Esther’s Army.

Gaddini explains that many of these women have been taught to think of themselves as Esther, the biblical heroine who risks her life to save her people.^[4] This is a common technique in evangelical teaching. We take a biblical hero and challenge the listener to become more like that person. The theological problem with this approach is that it makes us the hero, turns the Bible into a self-help book, and causes us to miss the actual hero of Scripture: Jesus.

But the movement’s use of Esther extends beyond bad theology. In the Book of Esther, Haman is plotting the genocide of the Jewish people. Esther’s actions save her people from extermination. The cultural and political disputes confronting American Christians today are not comparable. Questions about abortion, sexuality, gender, education, and religious liberty involve deeply held convictions and have meaningful consequences. Christians have every right to advocate for their beliefs. But there is no evidence of a coordinated effort to annihilate Christians as a people.

Perhaps more concerning, when a woman casts herself as Esther in a contemporary political struggle, she must assign someone else the role of Haman. The women Gaddini studies identify the enemies as the, “radicals on the Left: Democrats, pro-choice activists, the LGBTQ+ movement, ‘woke ideology,’ ‘cultural Marxists,’ and any movement they believe seeks to undermine America’s exceptional status in the eyes of God.”^[5]

The analogy does more than encourage women to act courageously. It transforms fellow citizens, co-workers, and neighbors with different political views into the equivalent of a genocidal enemy. A serious cultural or political disagreement becomes an existential struggle between good and evil.

When we falsely cast political opponents as evil, existential threats, we move dangerously close to extremism. When we mistake a fellow human being, made in the image of God, for one of “the powers of this dark world” (Eph. 6:12, NIV), and spiritualize our political quest as a fight for God, we move dangerously close not only to extremism, but to religious extremism, which has the grim distinction of being among its bloodiest forms.

One only needs to justify some form of hostile action to get there.

A few stories in Esther’s Army suggest that such action is seen as permissible, perhaps even necessary. As one woman explained, “We tried the nice Christian Republicans. . . . We need someone with sharper teeth. . . . Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire.”^[6]

Because Gaddini listens without caricaturing, the wounds beneath the politics become visible. Being ridiculed or ostracized for your beliefs is wrong, and the harm can be especially deep in adolescence, when identity and belonging are still taking shape. Understanding those wounds does not excuse demonization or hostility. It may, however, explain why a story offering belonging, protection, and purpose became so compelling— and how someone drawn to it might be reached by a better story.

The Christian right has been remarkably effective at activating women into civic and political life. It has taught them to speak up, organize their communities, and fight for what they love. Those are not inherently bad lessons. Courage, agency, and civic participation can all contribute to the common good.

But activating women politically is not the same as forming them to engage in public life according to the way of Jesus. Many of the women Gaddini profiles clearly love Jesus. What appears to be missing is the discernment and practical wisdom to navigate fear, suffering, political loyalty, and the pressure to win without abandoning his way.

Too often in the Christian right, the goal has been to win the election, legislative battle, school board dispute, or broader cultural fight. When winning becomes paramount, it becomes tempting to tolerate leaders on our side who speak in half-truths, dehumanize opponents, disregard the rule of law, or treat cruelty as strength. The stakes feel too high to insist upon integrity from our own allies.

Faithful political engagement cannot be measured only by whether we prevail, or even by whether our cause is just. It must also be measured by how we pursue that cause. Discernment asks what love, justice, truth, and faithfulness to Jesus require of us. It also asks what our political participation is doing to us: What kind of people are we becoming? Does our engagement bear the fruit of the Spirit?

Christians are not called to fight fire with fire. We are called to do justice, love mercy, walk humbly, speak truth, love our enemies, and overcome evil with good. What if Christian women used their influence to demand truthfulness, integrity, and respect for the rule of law from leaders on their own side? What if courage meant not only confronting political opponents, but refusing to excuse wrongdoing within their own coalition?

Gaddini shows us a part of the church in need of ministry. These women are not political problems to solve. They are our sisters and neighbors. Many sincerely believe they are serving God. Yet in seeking to defend what they love, they may not recognize that their fear, hope, and devotion have become directed toward political power.

I recognize this temptation because my own faith and politics were intertwined for years. A study of Jeremiah confronted me with the warning, “Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who draws strength from mere flesh and whose heart turns away from the Lord.” By contrast, the one who trusts in God “will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream.” It does not fear when heat comes and never fails to bear fruit (Jer. 17:5–8, NIV).

The answer is neither contempt nor retreat from public life. It is patient ministry within the church: sound teaching, loving correction, deeper discipleship, and communities that form women to participate with courage and conviction without being ruled by fear, grievance, or the pursuit of power. Such women would refuse to demonize those with whom they disagree, seek the good of their neighbors, and tell the truth even when it costs their side.

This is the possibility I have been wrestling with since writing Kingdom of Rage: imagining a distinctly Christian way of inhabiting public life. Anyone who wants to help the church move toward that should read Esther’s Army. Gaddini helps us see the women behind the movement—their wounds and aspirations, the communities that give them belonging, and the stories that teach them whom to fear and how to fight. We cannot minister wisely to people we have not first tried to understand. Gaddini’s book helps us begin.

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^[1] Katie Gaddini, Esther’s Army: The Christian Women Who Power the American Right (W. W. Norton & Company, 2026), 158–159.

^[2] J. M. Berger, Extremism (MIT Press, 2018), 44.

^[3] For a deeper explanation of radicalization and extremism, see Elizabeth Neumann, Kingdom of Rage: The Rise of Christian Extremism and the Path Back to Peace (Worthy Books, 2024), Chapter 2.

^[4] Gaddini, Esther’s Army, 11.

^[5] Gaddini, Esther’s Army, 11.

^[6] Gaddini, Esther’s Army, 155.