This is a transcript of Jennifer LeClarie duping gullible Dr Michael Brown on his program on the 15th of May, 2017. You can listen to this episode on the Line of Fire radio program and read our critique of LeClaire’s dialogue here:
Michael Brown fails to correct Jennifer LeClaire’s ‘Sneaky Squid Spirit’ eisegesis.
TRANSCRIPT (33:18-45:05)
Dr Michael Brown: “Without any further ado, we’ve got Jennifer LeClaire on the line. Hey Jennifer, welcome back to the Line of Fire.”
Jennifer LeClaire: “Hey Dr Brown, how are you?”
Dr Michael Brown: “Doing well. So little did I know that our short little interview about 10 days ago, would spiral into me now being told that if I don’t disassociate you as a false teacher, which I understand means a hell bound heretic and deceiver, then I myself am a hell bound heretic and deceiver. I’m sure it’s not the first you’ve heard of it (laughs) but came as a bit of a swirl. I did send you a few of the links just to glance at.
Jennifer, first let me ask this; what matters to you most? What do you live for? What moves you? I know you’re a wife, you’re a mother, you work at Charisma etc. But the core of your being, what moves you, what motivates you?”
Jennifer LeClaire: “You know, intimacy with God. In 2010 the Lord told me to make prayer my life’s work. And so I write books, I do TV and radio, and I’m the Editor of Charisma. You know my heart beat is prayer that requires intimacy with God. It requires leaning on His breast and listening to His heart, and that’s really the core of who I am, is just trying to walk with the Lord, walk in the Word. You know, I think you know, in a nut shell, I’m a word person, I’m a spirit person, I strive for that balance between being grounded and rooted in the word, and also be open to what the Holy Spirit is saying and wants to do.”
Dr Michael Brown: “And tell me the difference between sensing the Lord is speaking to you vs the written word?”
Jennifer LeClaire: “Well, you know the written word is infallible. Our hearing, our spiritual hearing is not infallible. Anyone is capable of being deceived, but we can always rely, lean on, depend on the Holy Spirit inspired word of God. It’s profitable for correction, for instruction, or for rebuke. So primarily, the Word of God is to ultimately what must guide us but at the same time, there is revelation from the Holy Spirit. The Bible says, ‘He will lead us and guide us into all truth’, it says, ‘He will put words in our mouth when we need them’, you know it says, ‘He will comfort us’. So the Bible also says, Jesus said that, ‘man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.’ And the tense there indicates that God is still speaking.
So we cannot, just say, “Well, you know, if it’s not in the bible, if that experience is not in the bible, we have to negate it.” There are people that have had experiences, like Bill Johnson. You know, where there’s things with angels that we don’t understand. There’s things like Ezekiel experience with the wheel within in a wheel. And, you know, all these, you know, living creatures in the book of Revelation. You know, there’s abstract things. But again, I’m one that’s been more historically and presently a stickler for it being in the Word. I’m not on the fringes. I’m weary of things, you know with too many angel feathers, too much gold dust, gemstones. All that really, uh, sort of, causes me pause. I don’t speak against it because I can’t say that it’s not God. But I’ve always been more conservative in that realm.”
Dr Michael Brown: “And how do you feel about lack of accountability among certain ‘prophetic people’ in the Charismatic movement, does that concern you?”
Jennifer LeClaire: “It does concern me. We call them ‘lone rangers’, or renegades where they sort of spout off. We see a lot of prophetic ‘opinion’, a lot of subjective experiences that aren’t even in the bounds of reality of scripture. In other words, there’s some things we don’t maybe find in scripture. The Bible says, ‘if we recorded all the works of Jesus, there would not be enough books in the world to, you know, there would not be enough room in the world for all the books they would offer. But there are some things that just defies scripture. It’s not that you can’t find it in scripture, it’s you can’t find the principal in scripture, it just defies scripture. We are seeing some of that in prophetic ministry, where people are giving angels very, very strange names. I have spoken out against some of those things, people are selling prophetic words. All this is very troublesome and I have been very vocal about it.”
Dr Michael Brown: “Yeah, so there’s one thing to say it’s extra biblical. In other words, we don’t find this specifically in the Bible. You could argue that the use of instruments, musical instruments is not explicitly found in the New Testament, where we find it in most of our churches, it’s not that it’s unbiblical. But it would be unbiblical to say that Satan is Lord. So we understand those differences.
And Jennifer, within Charisma itself, let’s just say someone writes in and says they have an amazing testimony and it’s the most incredible thing. Do you require documentation before you print that?”
Jennifer LeClaire: “It depends, if they’re saying they raised the dead, yes, we will get a doctor’s report. You know Randy Clarke has a great project, where he has gone around documented those type of healings. We do ask for documentation. If someone says, ‘I was in a prayer line and I laid hands on somebody and they had a headache and it went away, or ears opened up. If they’re not naming names and they’re sort of giving testimony or giving antidotes to teach a principal, as long as they’re not naming names, no, we don’t ask for that level of indication. But if they’re saying cancer was healed, and you know, a dead person was raised, those kinds of things. Absolutely, we get verification.”
Dr Michael Brown: “Yeah, I remember something happening a few years ago, that’s why it came to my attention that Charisma said, ‘we need medical documentation before we print that.’
Alright, last question. This whole thing about this ‘sneaky squid spirit’ that a pastor called in and said, ‘you had a guest on and she believes in a sneaky squid spirit. I thought ‘sneaky’ I mean the devil’s sneaky, that’s not an issue there. But I have no idea how a demon is going to manifest, it seemed very weird to me, honestly I’d never heard of the thing, but it seemed very weird to me. But I thought if the bible depicts Satan as a seven headed dragon, and you’ve got angels with four different faces, lion, ox, eagle, man. I don’t know, it could be symbolic of tentacles or something?
So, since you wrote about it, just take a minuet to explain what you understand, was this something symbolic or not.”
Jennifer LeClaire: “I see, in a sense of it being symbolic, you know, for example we have the Jezebel spirit. I don’t think there’s a thing called ‘Jezebel’, I think it’s essentially a spirit of seduction. In Revelation 2 and 20, Jesus speaks of this woman who calls herself a ‘Jezebel’, who calls herself a prophet, who teaches and seduces. And so, you know, I believe in the spirit of seduction. We use it in Jezebel because we like to have a common vernacular to explain things, to talk about things.
The same way the devil, the dragon is symbolic. The Lord, He’s not a rock, He’s not a fortress, in the general sense of the word. You know, Jesus is not a lamb, the Holy Spirit is not a dove.”
Dr Michael Brown: “Right.”
Jennifer LeClaire: “We sort of use symbols, you know we see that in scripture. So you know, sometimes in the deliverance ministry, in spiritual warfare ministry, we describe things by their function. And so, when someone is feeling a squeezing pressure on their head and it’s a- it’s affecting their nervous system, you know, you, uh, pi- uh, it could be, different- we call it different thi- I know people who are not Charismatic won’t understand this. But you know, things like the python spirit. We get that from a woman of divination from the book of Acts. Paul encountered her in that word divination, from the Greek word pythos”
Dr Michael Brown: “Stay right there, we’ll be right back and we’ll get to your calls.”
[Ad break]
Dr Michael Brown: “Thanks for joining us on the Line of Fire. We’re talking about the difference between constructive criticism and constructive criticism. If you’re critical of me, or my ministry, or the work that I do, or differ with me on any level, the phone lines are open (phone number).
So, speaking with Jennifer LeClaire, Editor of Charisma. She mentioned Acts 16:16. We see in our English translations that this slave girl had this spirit of divination, and yes in Green the work divination comes from the Greek word python. The lexicon points out that in Greek mythology the name of the python spirit or dragon… and was slain by Apollo. So this python spirit then became the name for the spirit of divination. And Jennifer’s just mentioning that in the same way some people who are engaging in spiritual warfare, Ephesians 4:12, ‘We don’t wrestle with flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers of darkness’. These satanic entities, these demonic spirits, that somethings they’ll be given names and referred to in certain ways.
John, if you could just put Jennifer back on with us that would be great.
So you were explaining then that sometimes terminology may be used. This was not an actual snake, Python, but it was just a description of this spirit of divination. And sometimes in spiritual warfare you or others have done similar things. Is that the point you were making?”
Jennifer LeClaire: “It is. We have to have some kind of common language to begin to discuss these things. So that’s the bottom line with that.”
Dr Michael Brown: “Right. So I sent you a transcript that was sent to me by a friend that raised charges against you. Saying that you had given false prophecy and said other things etc. Has this individual ever contacted you and raised concerns to you?”
Jennifer LeClaire: “No. I’ve never even heard of them before. I was not surprised because I saw what his spiritual background was and understood that he does not believe in prophecy. So if you don’t believe in prophecy to begin with, certainly any prophecy that’s uttered out of anyone’s mouth, would be considered false.”
Dr Michael Brown: “Right, right, exactly. And it would now be adding revelation. Do you think its best, obviously some people are not accessible. I might write an open letter to Miley Cyrus, like I did a couple of weeks ago, of course it’s redemptive, and every word I’m writing, I’m writing to be read publicly. But if I had access to her I’d reach out to her, if there was someone, if I had a way to get to someone, I’d reach out to them, and then If I can’t reach out to them, their door is closed. Then I’ll address what I would have to, if it’s a public issue.
But do you think it’s best if people do reach out directly so you can have interaction, does that seem the more constructive way?”
Jennifer LeClaire: “It does. Now their motives matter, and if they’re just bent on attacking, there’s no real use in dialoguing much. If they want to have a true dialogue where they’re seeking to understand, really concerned for my wellbeing, that’s a whole different story. I find some of these guys that do sorts of things like this, they trash you on the radio and all these sorts of things publicly, without ever speaking, they’re actually violating scripture, they’re violating Matthew 18, the principals therein. And so, it concerns me for them. It doesn’t bother me, I like you have learnt to take these things and rejoice in them because of their persecution. I answer to the Lord and I have accountability all around and about me. So it’s unfortunate, but we deal with it.”
Dr Michael Brown: “Got it. Hey I appreciate you taking time to join us today, and just address some of these things. Again, my goal and I said through the show is not to bash and attack people, I’m not here to hurt people. I’m here to help as much as possible. So thank you for weighing in.”
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