PENUEL MNGUNI: SNAKE-FEEDING PASTOR'S CHURCH BURNT DOWN BY YOUTHS IN SOUTH AFRICA

Penuel Mnguni, controversial South African pastor, of the End Time Disciples Ministries was beaten up by some angry South African youths in Mmakaunyane Village in the North Western part of South Africa last week Sunday November 15th. During the attack, the youths burnt down his church and tied him and a member of his church up with rope.

  

Penuel, who is known for engaging in strange practices such as feeding worshippers LIVE SNAKES to test their faith, STANDING on a woman during service, claiming he makes his congregants speak Chinese and Nigerian languages, asking his congregation to eat grass, strip naked and swallow live snakes, had been lying low for sometime after a mob led by South African vigilante group, the Economic Freedom Fighters, burnt his church at Soshanguve in Tshwane.

He had tried setting up his church again inside a bush in Mmakaunyane community but was caught.The tent of his church was burnt down by the angry youths while he and some of his church members were beaten and tied up. Police officers fortunately came to their rescue.

Resident Johanna Baloyi said the pastor and his congregation were not allowed in their area. “How can a person eat a rat and claim it tastes like chocolate? That’s evil!” A church member who was protecting her pastor said they have the right to attend any church they wanted. She said the rats have healed and saved them from suffering.

The South Africa interfaith council’s Reverend Thamin Mvambo says:
“Any kind of religion that propagates ideas that are unacceptable; we cannot support that.”

He says these so-called prophets don’t want to engage with anybody to explain how their alleged miracles assist their followers.

“Their claims are not even founded in any scripture; [these are] things that they are actually propagating out of their own minds.”

Mvambo says the state cannot intervene because there is freedom of religion in and it’s up to religious leaders to self-regulate.