Holy snakes! Cultural rights body to give update on the ‘abuse’ of people’s religious beliefs

When it comes to pastors and their religious beliefs‚ South Africa has seen it all – including leaders who force congregants to eat snakes and spray Doom in their followers’ faces.

Some of these church leaders claim the ability to make miraculous declarations and turn household products into religious substances. Some have claimed they can turn Jik into the blood of Jesus‚ or have even made congregants believe that petrol tastes like pineapple juice.

In the most recent incident‚ controversial "snake pastor" Penuel Mnguni – so nicknamed because he fed his congregants snakes – came under fire after he had chosen dog meat for communion. He claimed that the congregants were eating the body of Christ. 

Another controversial religious leader‚ Lethebo Rabalago made headlines in 2016 for spraying his congregants with Doom‚ claiming it would heal them.

Rabalago was subsequently found guilty of assault with the intent to cause grievous bodily harm and contravening the Agricultural Stock Remedies Act earlier this year.

These and other scandals caused the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of Cultural‚ Religious and Linguistic Communities (CRL) to launch an investigation into the “commercialisation of religion and the abuse of people’s belief systems”.

A presentation of their recommendations which included that every religious practitioner must be registered and fall under umbrella organisations and that every religious leader should have a location where he or she conducts religious ceremonies – was made to parliament last year.

But now‚ in the wake of Mnguni’s dog food incident‚ the CRL says it will host a meeting in Cape Town on Thursday to “update on the commercialisation of religion and abuse of the people’s belief systems report as well as the draft code of conduct for religious leaders”.

In its invitation to the event‚ the CRL highlighted some of the dodgy and bizarre practices that have taken place in South African churches.

These include:

• Snake eating;
• grass eating;
• hair eating;
• flower eating;
• doom spraying;
• putting congregants in a freezer;
• eating of Omo washing powder;
• drinking of Jeyes fluid and Dettol;
• eating of Rattex;
• drinking of car engine cleaning fluid;
• driving of cars over congregants; and
• the giving away of hard earned money including retirement or pension funds.