As a leader in the prophetic and prayer movements, many people have asked me to offer an explanation on the failed Trump prophecies during the 2020 election cycle and where we go from here. Although I did not prophesy Trump would win, I have been praying about this for months and I believe the Holy Spirit has shown me some truths that will help us move forward in unity, if we will accept them.

I realize many people will not receive this. I understand the risks involved in speaking out, but many people have serious questions and concerns about the prophetic movement and more than a few are readying to write off prophets and prophetic minisry altogether as the strife continues. The Body rejecting prophetic ministry would be more tragic in the end than a handful of prophetic voices who missed it and refuse to acknowledge the error. 

Again, I have spent many hours praying and pondering what we’ve seen in the last months and even the last few days. As one who has walked in prophetic ministry for 20 years—at least half the lifespan of the modern-day prophetic movement which God began restoring in the 1980s—and as one who carries a mandate to drop a plumb line in the church, I would be disobedient to the call of God on my life if I did not speak up in this hour.

Understand this, I am not positioning myself as the policeman of the prophetic or the answer woman for how to resolve what has emerged as a discernible crisis in the prophetic and prayer movements. I am not trying to give stones to the heresy hunters who don’t believe in prophets, or ammunition to the ones who never believed Trump would win a second term. 

I believe in the true prophetic ministry with every fiber of my being. It is a vital ministry in the Body of Christ that has seen many come into salvation, deliverance, emotional and physical healing and many other blessings. Christ gave prophets to the church (see Ephesians 4:11). For those of you who were not compelled to support Trump with a vote or with a prayer, now is not the time to take on an “I told you so” attitude. And, that is by no means the heart of this letter. What, then, is my purpose in writing this open letter to the Body of Christ? I have more than one. 

First, I want to see healing come to the Body of Christ. Our January theme for Awakening Prayer Hubs, a prayer movement of about 250 prayer leaders in 25 nations, is Unity of the Faith. The Lord told me months ago, before the election, to put forth this theme. We may not have known just how divided we would be at this point, but He did. We must begin to unify under the banner of Jesus, even if we cannot unite under the platform of a politician. 

Second, I am hoping this letter kicks off a broader conversation about accountability in the prophetic. I would like to see a process that can help us recover from this embarrassing moment in prophetic history, learn from our mistakes, and preserve the credibility of accurate prophetic voices who have labored with integrity for decades without scandal. 

We cannot discredit the entire movement over a relative few prophets who prophesied a 2020 Trump victory that didn’t happen, or a few brash and brazen voices who continue to insist Trump will serve as president for a second consecutive term, or even serious issues and problems present before the election. But it’s clear accountability is lacking, not just in terms of inaccurate prophetic words but the character of some prophetic voices that sowed seeds of discord and used intimidation tactics to condemn those who would not agree with their utterances.

Third, I hope to accomplish these goals while preserving my current relationships. I am not writing from a place of condemantion, but conviction that the prophetic ministry is more vital today than ever, which is why the enemy is doing his level best to tear it down before it comes into its fullness. I pray that these desires and the sincerity of my heart come through in these words. I am writing this from a place of concern, humility, and hope for a stronger prophetic movement in the future. 

For background, I prophesied Trump would win in 2016, but I did not prophesy Trump would be reelected in 2020. Why? Because God did not tell me anything about a second term. The well-known mothers and fathers in the prophetic movement did not prophesy a 2020 Trump relection either. As they publicly stated, God did not give them a word on the matter. There was a lot of pressure on me and others to prophesy a second term. And that’s part of the problem in the prophetic movement—a problem I have called out for many years—the pressure to prophesy, especially along party lines.

Did prophets and prayer movement leaders make mistakes regarding Trump and how they handled the aftermath? Yes, huge mistakes.

Can any good come out of these misses? Yes, if there is repentance, an understanding of what went wrong, and stronger accountability is put into place to avoid repeating this unfortunate moment in prophetic movement history. For that to happen, there needs to be honesty, transparency, and an end to the attempts to stand on and stretch out prophetic words that clearly did not come to pass. God works all things together for the good to those who love Him and are called according to His purposes (see Romans 8:28).

At the same time time, the rest of the Body of Christ also needs to demonstrate humility, forgiveness and, in some cases, repentance for pressuring prophets to prophesy according to a party line, or to make predictions on demand about world events, or to have a “word of the month” and so on. The Body of Christ, too shares, some responsibility for depending too much on prophets instead of building a personal relationship with God and hearing His voice for themselves. This is not a time for condemnation, but a time for communication, cooperation and consideration as we move forward.

Did I believe the prophetic words about a second Trump election? I believed Trump was God’s will because I am pro-life, from the womb to the tomb, a friend of Israel, stand for the sanctity of marriage and other conservative values.

Based on so many prophetic utterances from people I personally knew, I believed he would win until the morning after the election when the Holy Spirit showed me otherwise. Yet I continued to pray for exposure, like so many others, because the reality is when we think we’re right we can be wrong.

There was no harm in praying for exposure, but there comes a time when we must acknowledge the error. Intercessors who are warring for Trump in the spirit are exhausted, and some are now actively engaged in works of strife. Some intercessors are bitter because they feel, “God did not answer our cry to save the babies.” People are losing faith in the the reality of prophetic ministry today and even losing faith in God. This is a dangerous moment in the prayer and prophetic movements.

How did so many prophets prophesy a word that didn’t come pass? In their repentance, some have cited the misinterpretation of a dream. Others have cited getting caught up in the prevalent thought. Still others haven’t suggested yet how they may have missed it, but have indicated they are praying into it and soul searching. Some prophets have repented, retracted their repentance and then reissued their repentance a second time due to intimidation tactics from leaders and lay believers alike. Others repented for their prophecies, then said if Trump gets in they will repent for repenting. Unfortunately, this makes the prophetic movement look double-minded instead of God-minded.

There are many reasons why prophets can prophesy inaccurately. And there is more than one potential reason so many prophets prophesied a Trump win that didn’t happen.

Before you say, “They didn’t get it wrong” understand that, yes, they did. These prophets did not say Trump would win in 2024. They indicated 2020. They did not say that Trump would win if the church prayed hard enough. There were no conditions whatsoever placed on their prophetic words. The prophets did not prophesy, “The election will be stolen but Trump really did win.” They did not prophesy someone like Trump would win in the future. And, again, these prophets prophesied Donald J. Trump would win in 2020 and serve a second term in the White House. Period. He did not.

Again, like others in the Body of Christ, I prayed for exposure and did not publicly disagree with the prophets who prophesied a Trump victory during the weeks and months that followed. I did not want to hurt anyone’s faith. I did not want to start a bloody war by public disagreement. All along, although I believed I was right, I recognized I could be wrong. I had many conversations in the background, but did not in any way deny or defy what these other prophets or other prayer movement leaders—many of whom are friends—said until I could no longer stand in good conscience without speaking out. 

That day came with the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, which is when I wrote this letter, holding it until the rawest of emotions settled in the church. In my view, it doesn’t matter as much who was behind the insurrection as much as that it was allowed to happen. So many in the prayer and prophetic movement were hyperfocused on exposing fraud that the enemy creeped in and now people are dead, our nation has been embarrassed, our democracy has been injured and the principalities and powers have leverage. We can't let that happen again, as we contend for the Third Great Awakening the Holy Spirit spoke to me about in April 2007.

So, how did the prophets get this wrong? Ultimately, I believe it comes down to preference and bias. I have been cautioning prophetic people to beware of prophesying the party line for decades. King Ahab had 400 prophets prophesying the party line to him and King Jehoshephat. They assured the kings they would gain victory in the battle if they set out to flight. Jehoshephat asked Ahab if there were any real prophets in the house. He discerned the bias. Ultimately, only one prophet out of 401 prophesied the truth. Ahab died in battle. 

I believe some prophets who prophesied a Trump win never heard God at all. They merely tapped into the popular prophetic opinion because it was what so many in the church wanted to hear.  As for the church, many in the body were just as biased and did not judge the words of the prophets. They took the prophetic word as gospel, without consideration of bias, perhaps, because of their own political preference.

There are many reasons why prophets may have prophesied inaccurately, and we can look at that in-depth in at another time. Let me say this: no one is perfect. I have no stones of judgment to heave at anyone. Still, the reality is serious error has manifested in the prophetic movement; some are even calling it a strong delusion. If we hope to restore trust in the prophetic, this period in church history needs to be examined, prayed through, and discussed, so that we can try to avoid such large scale error that breeds strife in the prophetic and prayer movements in the future. 

We can move past this. We can heal from this. We can grow from this. But we have to address it head on, and not pretend it didn’t happen or deny the prophets who prophesied a Trump victory did not release an accurate word. We can’t move on too quickly or we will miss the lesson and repeat this unfortunate moment in prophetic history. The problems are not new, but this election cycle magnified them on a worldwide scale.

As Patricia King rightly stated, the prophetic movement is still young. It’s only about 40 years old. That’s a generation. We saw pioneers like Bishop Bill Hamon father this movement in its early stages with protocols and practices to equip believers to hear from God and to train prophets. Now, a new generation of prophets and prophetic people are rising up, perhaps without that same level of training or an understanding of the protocols that many of us who walked with some of the elders learned. If the prophetic movement is to fulfill its role in the decades ahead, we need to face this moment and reset.

I don’t personally know all of the prophets who prophesied. The ones I know first-hand are tremendous voices who I appreciate and respect. I believe there has been damage done to the prophetic movement, but the prophets I personally know love the Lord and have good hearts. They meant no harm, and their humility in repentance demonstrates that they want to take responsibility for their actions. That’s noble. Others I had never heard of until Christian media started publishing their Trump prophesies after election day. 

Anyone can make a mistake and we all do. The only perfect prophet was Jesus. It’s when we refuse to acknowledge our mistakes after millions of Christians have agreed with and warred with our words to the detriment of the unity of the Bride and in opposition to the law of love that we are demonstrating our slip into error or arrogance.

What’s equally as troubling is the backlash some Christians are bringing to the doorstep of prophets who repented for inaccurate prophecies. They aren’t being condemned for missing it, nor should they be. Releasing a false prophecy does not make one a false prophet. A false prophet is one who sets out to deceive. Instead, these prophets who are demonstrating humility in repentance are being called double-minded for giving up on Trump. They are being told they did not miss it and they should retract their apology. (Some did.) That tells me a spirit of error is running rampant in the church. Perhaps even a strong delusion, as some are suggesting.

With all that said, it’s time for my overarching purpose for this letter: to identicationally repent on behalf of the leadership of the prophetic movement (see Daniel 9:1-19; Nehemiah 1:4-7). 

I am not doing this out of arrogance, as if I have all the answers or that I am the spokesperson for the modern-day prophetic movement. That is not the spirit of what I am doing. That said, I do represent an element of the modern-day prophetic movement and prayer movement leadership, having written many books on the topic, with endorsements from the elders, serving as former editor of Charisma magazine, sitting on international apostolic-prophetic boards, and birthing houses of prayer and prayer hubs in 25 nations. I believe indentificational repentance is the best path forward to rebuild the trust that was lost.

What is identificational repentance? Identificational repentance is when one person repents for corporate sin in a people group. There are plenty of examples in the Old Testament, from Moses repenting for the complaining Israelites (see Exodus 34:8-9) to Daniel repenting on behalf of Israel (see Daniel 9:20).

With that, I repent to the Body of Christ on behalf of the prophetic movement. I repent for the lack of accountability. I repent for the lack of discernment, for the lack of true mothering and fathering of the next generation, for caving into the pressure to prophesy, for prophesying along political party lines, for the lack of humility, for promoting people too fast in an age of social media, for exalting gifting over character, for not learning from past mistakes in the prophetic movement, for prophesying with wrong motives, for not confronting prophetic witchcraft, for selling prophecy, for engendering an over dependance on prophets instead of equipping the Body to hear His voices for themselves, and other grievances. I repent on behalf of the prophetic movement and ask for forgiveness.

The prophetic movement is facing a moment of reckoning. I've seen it coming for 20 years, and have been writing about it for just as long. We can reset in humility or we can continue to ignore the issues that brought us to this point. My heart-felt prayer and my whole-hearted belief is that we can and will learn from this unfortunate moment and build a stronger, more accurate prophetic movement that edifies the Body of Christ. I know that’s a prayer God wants to answer, because it was Jesus who gave prophets to His church.

With love, honor and hope,

Jennifer LeClaire