This is not a book about natural wildlife in Britain, as the title and beautiful cover image might suggest. Rather, it’s about the author’s personal journey into and out of the counterfeit signs and wonders movement. Anne Jones, recently retired after over 30 years’ service as a police officer, writes as one with a personal gifting in the prophetic.

Spiritual aberrations

In early chapters, she shares something of her spiritual journey after becoming a Christian. She goes on to describe her excitement at attending her first ‘prophetic conference’ in 2003. Although blessed by some of what she experienced there, she was disturbed by some of the physical manifestations she witnessed, as well as by activities such as the human ‘Fire Tunnel’, which attendees were encouraged to walk through, to shouts of ‘More Lord!’, ‘Fire!’ and ‘Get her, Lord!’, and from which many emerged in a state of seeming drunkenness and unruly laughter. Susan had never witnessed the like before.

Her concerns over these emotional displays caused her to study her Bible more closely, and also to engage in more in-depth research into charismatic counterfeits, despite some Christian friends warning her that she was in serious error for daring to question the work of the Holy Spirit. Such probing led her to believe that, in a more immediate sense, the unusual phenomena she was witnessing at charismatic gatherings dated at least back to the time of the Toronto Blessing in the mid-1990s.

The 'Lakeland revival' came complete with bouts of (un)holy laughter, manifestations of gold dust, Todd Bentley’s manipulative ‘Bam, Bam!’ approach, and his obsession with an angel called ‘Emma'.

The author testifies to the spiritual attacks she encountered as she challenged these counterfeits. She also observed that with each passing year, spiritual aberrations seemed to increase; notably with the arrival of a Welsh charismatic conference called Emerge, and of the so-called ‘Lakeland Revival’ in Florida in 2008. The latter movement came complete with bouts of (un)holy laughter, manifestations of gold dust, Todd Bentley’s manipulative ‘Bam, Bam!’ approach, and his obsession with an angel called ‘Emma’.

A poignant dream

Throughout the book, Susan relates a great many dreams and visions that she has experienced, along with what she sees as the clear interpretation of these, all of which ultimately were of great personal help in recognising what God is saying in the midst of what she was witnessing.

In perhaps her most powerful dream she finds herself in a woodland, where she parts the branches of a decadent-looking pine tree to find a red squirrel covered in sores. Slithering around behind some branches are several snakes, and there is also a black squirrel present. A bit of research revealed that the red squirrel, a protected species, requires a well-managed habitat to survive. They prefer to live high up within the branches, where they feed of the fruit of the tree – the pinecone. Black squirrels though rare, are mutants of the red.

Dream interpretation

Susan felt the pine tree was symbolic of God himself, the red squirrel was God’s people, and the pinecone his Word. Red squirrels are prone to a deadly virus transmitted by the more common grey squirrel, which is not fussy about the food it eats. Susan felt the grey squirrel represented those who have accepted the mixture of truth and error and are eager to encourage the red to do likewise.

The notorious black squirrel represents the false prophet, but the driving force behind all this deception is Satan. Symbolised by the snake, it is he who encourages and deceives the false prophet into passing his deadly anointing. (As an interesting postscript, Susan heard on a BBC Country File report that the worst-recorded recent outbreak of deadly squirrel-pox transmitted by grey squirrels occurred in 2008, the very year of the Lakeland revival!).

Counterfeit continuation

In later chapters, Susan shows how these same counterfeits continue to resurface today in churches connected to the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR). She highlights a number of activities practised by churches within this group that are questionable, if not heretical (I don’t necessarily agree with every conclusion the author makes here).

The book is interesting, not just because of its exposé of counterfeit signs and wonders, but also in relating the author’s personal journey in the prophetic, which came with many encouragements and upsets. Most telling are the rebuffs she received from trusted church leaders when she dared to speak out on the unbiblical nature of many goings on.

Absorbing study

I confess I did find the continual sharing of personal dreams and interpretations to be rather distracting. They take up a considerable amount of space, and are of course, quite subjective; thus they are unlikely to have a similar impact on the reader as they had on the author.

The book is interesting, not just because of its exposé of counterfeit signs and wonders, but also in relating the author’s personal journey in the prophetic, which came with many encouragements and upsets.

That aside, there is no question that Ms Jones provides a great many truly pertinent insights in this absorbing study. For anyone concerned by charismatic deception in today’s global Church, this unique work will be of huge interest and considerable benefit.

‘The Green Pine: A Modern-Day Parable’ (190pp) is published by New Generation Publishing and is available from Amazon for £8.99.