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(Photo: Facebook/End Times Disciples
Ministries)Self-styled South African prophet Penuel Mnguni, 24 (l) feeds a
snake to one of his congregants.
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Controversial Pastor Penuel Mnguni
of the End Times Disciples Ministries in South Africa reportedly admitted to
Nigerian megachurch preacher T.B. Joshua that he misread the Bible in having
his congregants eat live snakes back in 2015.
Mnguni claimed at the time that
through the power of God true believers can eat anything. Photos emerged online
showing the pastor feeding live snakes, rats, underwear and other things to
congregants.
South Africa's Commission for the
Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic
Communities rose up against his practices, however, and he was arrested, before
being released in 2016.
"A normal person cannot eat
snakes — you must be spiritual. To show that God was with me, no one has
died," he said at the time.
The Citizen reported on Sunday that Mnguni
has asked T.B. Joshua of the Synagogue Church of All Nations for deliverance,
however, and explained how he came to misread the Bible.
"It started when I was teaching
the word of God, Mark 16: 16 – 18, where it says: 'he that believes in me,
these signs shall follow them; they shall pick up snakes, they will even drink
deadly poison and it shall not harm them. And also Romans 14, where it says to
those who believe, to those who have a strong faith, they can eat anything. And
to those who have weak faith, they can only eat vegetables," Mnguni
stated.
He said that his reading at the time
led him to start feeding live snakes to his church members, which prompted
outrage all over South Africa, with the government cracking down on his
ministry.
"I came to realize that what I
was doing was not written in the Bible," he said recently.
"I started watching Emmanuel
TV, listening to prophet T.B. Joshua, I came to realize that what I was doing
was not scriptural. I came to realize that It's an attack. I came to T.B.
Joshua to deliver me," he added.
As Vanguard pointed out, the so-called "snake pastor"
has prompted other major controversies, and once reportedly told church members
to "undress in church and start masturbating until they reached
orgasms."
Mnguni is now asking to be set free
from the spirit that had him engage "in such bizarre, inhumane
actions."
The National Interfaith Council of
South Africa warned back in 2015 that such practices are harmful to
society and commercialize religion.
"Any kind of religion that
propagates ideas that are unacceptable; we cannot support that," the
council's Rev. Thamin Mvambo said at the time. "Their claims are not even
founded in any scripture; [these are] things that they are actually propagating
out of their own minds."
Joshua is also viewed as a
controversial figure. He has hosted miraculous healing ceremonies, claiming to help
blind people see and the deaf people hear again.
And claiming to have the gift of
prophecy, he predicted in 2012 the death of a president of a southern African
country. Malawi President Bingu Wa Mutharika died just two months later.
The Pentecostal Fellowship of
Nigeria has distanced itself from Joshua, however, as have other megachurch
leaders in Nigeria.
"He is an occultist,"
Anselm Madubuko, pastor of the 12,000-member Revival Assembly Church in Lagos,
said. "Joshua claims he was born again in his mother's womb. It is tragic
that Spirit-filled people are led astray by him."
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