Remedial Theology Episode 4: Mark thinks Esther is Simply Respecting Her Husband

Alexiana Fry's 'Esther Keeps the Score' examines the book of Esther through lenses of trauma, embodiment, and politics, foregrounding how social power dynamics shape the narrative. Fry reads the Masoretic (Hebrew) text closely to consider issues like gendered violence, grooming, and survival strategies within imperial contexts. The book highlights how trauma circulates through the story and affects both victims and perpetrators, arguing for intersectional readings attentive to race, migration, and gender. It challenges sanitized or devotional readings and calls attention to the human complexity and ambiguity in Esther. Fry situates the text historically and theologically while linking its themes to contemporary issues of power and abuse.

In this book, Isabel Wilkerson argues that racism in the United States is part of a broader caste system—a society-wide system of social stratification characterized by hierarchy, inclusion, and exclusion. She defines eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, heredity, and dehumanization. Wilkerson uses historical documentation, insightful analogies, and powerful anecdotes to illustrate how this caste system permeates American society, affecting people's lives and behavior. The book also explores the consequences of caste and the possibility of a world without it, emphasizing the need for collective effort to dismantle such systems.