Pastors and so-called prophets who engage in bizarre practices, such as instructing their followers to eat snakes, ants, and grass, will come under the spotlight on Thursday.

The SA Council of Churches is to host a discussion on these and other “unethical practices” in light of several such incidents.

One such case was that of “prophet” Penuel Mnguni, 23, who operates his End Times Ministries from a tent in Soshanguve, north of Pretoria.

He had his flock nibble on a snake, and bite off part of a rat’s tail. Charges of animal cruelty against him were withdrawn last month as it could apparently not be proved that the animals were alive at the time.

“I won’t stop this thing. This was given to me personally by God,” he declared while standing on a man’s chest, in a report by eNCA’s current affairs show CheckPoint.

He instructs one man to “sleep”. The man falls to the ground and Mnguni jumps on him, to cheers and applause.

“The Ghost’s power can turn anything into food,” he declared.

He then had his followers eat ants.

A junior pastor tells the congregants: “You eat, you are delivered. You eat, you are healed.”

Mnguni posted photos of some of his services, in which he made his congregants eat clothes and hair. He rode some of them like horses and made them strip naked.

Pastor Lesego Daniel, whose Rabboni Centre Ministries is based in Garankuwa, north of Pretoria, made his followers eat grass, claiming it will “bring them closer to God”. News24