Embark on a gripping exploration as we uncover the story of Gwen Shamblin, who charted a path from weight loss guru to creating a controversial spiritual movement. Crime Connoisseurs peels back the layers of Gwen's life, tracing her roots in the Church of Christ to the birth of the Weigh Down Workshop, her faith-infused diet program that soared to global recognition. We delve into the complexities of her methods, examining the allure they held for many and the unease they sparked among others, leading you to ponder where devotion ends and blind faith begins.
Addiction takes center stage in a riveting discussion that challenges conventional wisdom, suggesting a spiritual void rather than physiological dependency could be the culprit. As we dissect this theory, we bring forward voices from those who've shed pounds and found solace in Gwen's teachings, putting a spotlight on the potential for spiritual fulfillment in combating addictive behaviors. The conversation doesn't shy away from the contentious debate on personal responsibility versus industry culpability in shaping our consumption choices, leaving you with plenty to contemplate.
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Embark on a gripping exploration as we uncover the story of Gwen Shamblin, who charted a path from weight loss guru to creating a controversial spiritual movement. Crime Connoisseurs peels back the layers of Gwen's life, tracing her roots in the Church of Christ to the birth of the Weigh Down Workshop, her faith-infused diet program that soared to global recognition. We delve into the complexities of her methods, examining the allure they held for many and the unease they sparked among others, leading you to ponder where devotion ends and blind faith begins.
Addiction takes center stage in a riveting discussion that challenges conventional wisdom, suggesting a spiritual void rather than physiological dependency could be the culprit. As we dissect this theory, we bring forward voices from those who've shed pounds and found solace in Gwen's teachings, putting a spotlight on the potential for spiritual fulfillment in combating addictive behaviors. The conversation doesn't shy away from the contentious debate on personal responsibility versus industry culpability in shaping our consumption choices, leaving you with plenty to contemplate.
Thanks for being a loyal Crime Connoisseur! Enjoy your free 30-Day Audible Trial Membership
Discover your dog's DNA with a simple cheek swab for their genetic testing.
Your cat deserves better. Have fresh, human-grade meals for your cat straight to your door each month.
Hey, all my fellow crime commisores, I'm your host, grace D. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday. For those who've recently had one to celebrate, and for those of you whose holidays are still to come, I hope you all have a great holiday as well. Fun fact for those who didn't know, more than 10 holidays are observed and celebrated in December alone. This is something that I learned a few years ago and I like to share with those who may not know as well.
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In this week's case, we're going down a different road than before. This will spark a conflicting dialogue amongst people when it comes to religion. What defines a religious group as that in a church versus a cult? The charismatic leadership? The money, the beliefs? The sermons? Cult is a term for a relatively small group, typically led by a charismatic and self-appointed leader who tightly controls its members, requiring unwavering devotion to a set of beliefs and practices considered deviant, outside the norms of society. This week we're covering a woman out of Tennessee and how she went from a weight loss guru to a religious leader. Some refer to her as a preacher and others as a cult leader. Let's dive in and you decide how you feel about her and her practices. This is the case of Gwen Shamblin and the Remnant Fellowship Church.
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Gwendolyn Henley was born in Memphis, tennessee, on February 18, 1955. She was raised in the Church of Christ. The Church of Christ is a Protestant church movement that began in the 1800s. It was an emigration of several different groups with the same ideas. One of the ideas was restorationism the belief that recovery of your original Christian practice and thought, derived only from Scripture, was the only way to re-approach truth. They believed they came across it and were restoring lost truth.
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Gwen was one of four children and her mother believed they needed to clean their plates. Regarding food, gwen wanted to make sure she got her fair share when it came to the dinner table, and her father, who was a doctor, would notice. Gwen had a relentless hunger for more. She went on to college and studied dietics and nutrition at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. When she went to college, she gained an excess of 15 pounds. She was trying to figure out how to be a thin eater who could eat but not gain weight. Gwen believed that one's weight was not due to genetics. In 1978, gwen married David Shamblin. They welcomed their son, michael, in April of 1980 and then their daughter, michelle, who now goes by Elizabeth. In December of 1981.
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Gwen became a registered dietitian consultant and faculty member at Memphis State University for five years. She also worked in the City of Tennessee's Department of Health for five years. In 1980, gwen began a weight control consulting practice. Throughout the 80s she began sharing her wisdom. What she found out about being a thin eater, listening to your body and following hunger cues To Gwen it was a divine revelation. She started incorporating scripture and people started to come. They would lose some weight but then they would gain it back. Gwen asked the Lord what was happening and supposedly God spoke directly to Gwen and said quote they are not following me and my son, they're not being obedient. This was the start of the Way Down Workshop in 1986. Gwen developed the Way Down Workshop while completing her master's degree at Memphis State University. As part of a counseling center, she hosted the first class in a mall in Memphis, tennessee. The program was offered as a small class in retail and non-religious settings.
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What I do in this program is teach people how to stop bowing down to the refrigerator and how to bow back down to him.
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That was Gwen in one of her many interviews. The basic principles were you could eat whenever you wanted and no foods were bad. Jesus declared all foods clean in Mark 7. This gave the idea of food freedom. There were no food restrictions, exercise regimens or weigh-ins or calorie counting. They're being told that you can eat whatever you want and still lose weight even when the world and society say otherwise. But, as we know, everything in moderation. That's the key. There's a difference between everything in moderation, in a healthy way, and an extreme way that is so bad for you. Within the Way Down Workshop you waited for physical hunger and you ate until you were satisfied. And the times that you weren't hungry you went to God and prayed. You gave the desire for food to him Park, when they can only think about food when their stomach growls, eliminating a lot of focus on food. So in theory the program works simply by portion control.
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The Way Down Workshop started in Bellevue Baptist Church in 1992, and after only five years it spread like wildfire. The program consisted of 12-week seminars guided by video and audio tapes featuring Gwen. The program was offered in about 600 churches across 35 states by 1994. By January 1995, it was in more than 1,000 churches in 49 states, great Britain and Canada. The program grew to about 5,000 churches, with about 10% located in Gwen's home state of Tennessee, by July of 1996. Approximately eight churches in Great Britain hosted workshops in December of 1996. In 1996, way Down Workshop employed 40 people and built a headquarters in Franklin. Tennessee. 308 Corporate Center was home to the Way Down Workshop warehouse.
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Other Christian diets taught the same general principles, but she expanded on them. She began developing Bible studies. That became the foundation for the Way Down Workshop. Gwen started hosting an annual summer convention called Desert Oasis in the Nashville area. By 1997, from word of mouth, way Down Workshop reached 250,000 people in over 14,000 churches and 70 countries. Classes were hosted in every US state, canada and Europe. Some participants even hosted workshops in their homes in the US. Some criticized Gwen for using the Christianity label. While building her business, gwen appeared on CBS, nbc 2020, and Larry King Live. She gained such a massive media attention. Gwen wrote books on Way Down Workshop. In 1997, her book, the Way Down Diet, sold over 400,000 copies. The concept of the Way Down Diet was that the love of food should be transferred to a love of God and to cut food portions in half, only eating when you're hungry. In 1998, gwen went on Larry King Live saying we were made to be addictive. Here's part of that interview.
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God doesn't care if you're fat or not.
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No, no, no. But if people think, hey, this is too hard thinking, hey, you know, I've always said, you know, my dad was a surgeon and he used to follow him around, you know, going through the making rounds, and I said, dad, how can you cut someone open, you know? And he said, you know, I don't think about cutting someone open, I think about taking the bad out and I feel like what I'm doing oh yes, it may hurt a little bit to go back and say it's not the food's fault, it's your fault. Your hands are like this. You know you're too. It's too much food, you know you've got to turn it up like this and wait A lot of people have tendencies to addiction, predisposed to addiction.
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That we know that about alcoholics, that why some people are alcoholic and some are not, is a mystery I'm going to, I'm going to propose a new theory.
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I'm going to say it's not out there but it's in my book that I think we put way too much emphasis on this physiological addiction. You know, yes, there are delirium treatments after alcohol. Your body wants it.
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But some people can have three drinks and they're alcoholic. Some can have three and they're not.
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I'm going to tell you that I believe it's a spiritual addiction. I think what we have not addressed is that this is a void inside of us. We were made to be addictive and I'm not asking people not to be addictive, I'm saying transfer over this addiction to God, the only thing that can love you back without you know, robbing your blind.
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And how do you know it's not a crutch?
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That God is a crutch, hey, nathan, because we forgot what a God is in this country. Now, if you love the food, the food can't love you back. In fact, it robs you blind. It robs you for clothing you can't find anything to wear. It robs you early yeah, it kills you. It robs you of your health, of course, we all know that. But it robs you of your relationships, your self-esteem, your pocketbook. It's a parasitic leech. It's a false comfort. It's a false God.
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But a true God is this and you experiment with it. A God, a true God, needs nothing. He has everything. He owns a cattle on the Thousand Hills, he has everything. So now you go back and you experiment with this. It's empirical. You're giving 10 minutes and all of a sudden you seem to have an hour back. You're giving $10 and $100 with the blessings. You can play around with this and you find him. And then you know if you're seeking, you will find him. And then the fact is, his heart gets full, that's the desire goes away for the food. It's filled up. Instead of chocolate cake, you fill it up with God. You get skinny.
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I need to deal with when they used to say when someone wins something, it means someone had to lose something. Let's say God, everybody prays to God who smokes, and they deal with God and they get the spirit and they will stop smoking. There's going to be a tobacco farmer, he's going to look them and say God, why'd you do this to me?
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Oh no, he'll give back, he'll, I don't know. Yes, I do. I believe that if someone's looking to go out of business, you know I'm the one that's here trying to defend the tobacco company. I think we have like beat them to death saying that they, they, they, they, they kill a product. Well, well, at the same time, I'm sitting there saying what about moderation? What about an occasional cigar? Is that what's wrong? What about a moderate drink every once in a while? What about? What about a?
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brownie. If you sell moderation, they're out of business. They're selling you.
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What if we got to the food and said brownies are killing. You See, I believe it's the person. The person has got to have a responsibility and I'm saying quit blaming the tobacco company and the food.
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Let me get a break with Gwen Shamblin.
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Gwen did tours all over the country called Rebuilding the Wall. She would have people come up on stage holding up their old clothes and talk about their weight loss. One woman claimed she had lost 196 pounds following Gwen and the Weigh Down Workshop. The core audience of Weigh Down Workshop was women who felt that they had significant needs in their lives that weren't being spoken to by the traditional churches they were in. Gwen was very passionate about God and taught people how to have a relationship with Him. In another interview, gwen was asked if she was worried about the appearance of God only loving you if you were thin and she said quote no, I think he's jealous. He's jealous of us worshiping things more than Him. End quote. She started putting out more curricula and media with the same message. As the wealth grew and Gwen began to gain more of a following, she brought in her things to, believing that her message would apply to everything and any personal problem people had, such as alcohol, cigarettes, drugs and porn, to name a few.
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In the HBO Max docu-series the Weigh Down, god Greed and the Cult of Gwen Shamblin, reverend Rafael Martinez states, quote Gwen continuously asserted that she was a purveyor of this wonderful message. End quote. Gwen says quote we want to teach you permanent weight loss, but more than that, we want to teach you fulfillment in life end quote. She uses all the language of recruitment for a cause or a personal quest. Gwen believed the Weigh Down workshop message was the answer to all the world's evils. Reverend Martinez also said quote she believed she had the truth. Christian perfectionism could only be achieved by following her announcement end quote. After this she felt like there needed to be a new church, a new restoration. In March 1999, the Reminant Fellowship Church was incorporated and between July 14 and 15, 2000, gwen held the Desert Oasis 2000 Weigh Down workshop convention. It was here that Gwen announced the start of Reminant Fellowship. Half the people in attendance accepted her message and the other half left because she rejected the traditional Christian notion of the Holy Trinity that there is one God in three forms the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and instead Gwen placed emphasis solely on God and His will. On August 10, 2000, gwen sent an email to her followers saying that she believed the doctrine of the Trinity was not biblical. After this, some evangelical churches started removing the Weigh Down workshop classes in their churches because she denied the Trinity. People and churches called into the Weigh Down workshop warehouse, angry and yelling. Books and tapes were being shipped back to them. Thomas Nelson Publications canceled the publication of her next book out of Egypt. She was also removed from the Women of Faith website and some employees resigned.
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Five women, represented by Gary Blackburn, filed a religious discrimination lawsuit against Gwen Shamblin, one of the claimants. Tanya Cardente was a staff counselor until she was fired on June 13, 2000. Tanya claims that she was fired for preying on the job. She told the Baptist Press quote I used my lunch hour to pray and I was told by Gwen Shamblin that she pays people good money to pray and she didn't need my prayers and it wasn't my place to decide what to pray for. Tanya continued in the interview saying, quote she said some people are sacrificed for the benefit of others and that's what she said when I was fired. End quote. Attorney Gary Blackburn told Baptist Press in the same article, quote basically the owner of Way Down Workshop established her own church and imposed religious tests upon the people who worked there. That's discrimination based upon religious preference and you don't see these kinds of cases very often. End quote.
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Tanya had moved from California one year prior because she was recruited to work at Way Down's Nashville office. She was courted for about a year and decided it would be a good opportunity for her and her family. After moving to Nashville, she said she was increasingly pressured to join Gwen's church, reminent Fellowship. She said she prayed about it and visited the church for about two months, but stopped after hearing things that she knew weren't orthodox. She said quote Gwen would tell us that grace isn't the message of God and that she is a prophet. She said the Antichrist resides within each of us. End quote.
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Tanya said that after leaving Reminent Fellowship, she lost her job, and she wasn't the only one. At least 35 employees of Way Down Workshop had been pressured to quit their jobs. A Southern Baptist employee claims that she was fired because she would not attend Gwen's church. Anita Pillow, a Park Avenue Baptist church member and a single mom, told Baptist Press she was heartbroken after losing her position of almost three years, but became distraught when Gwen asked her to lie about her dismissal. In the Baptist Press article, anita said, quote I was told that, because of the direction the company was moving towards, my position was being replaced by someone who attended her Reminent Fellowship church.
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She thanked me for my hard work but said my services were no longer needed Because I was not a member of Reminent Fellowship. I was being replaced. In the middle of being fired, gwen sent me a letter saying that human resources people made a mistake and I wasn't supposed to be fired, only allowed to resign. She asked me to sign this letter saying that I resigned and was never fired. Well, I didn't sign it because it was not the truth. She called me personally and that's just what I told her. They told me that I wouldn't get any money if I didn't sign those papers. End quote. You see, anita was no fool. She saved copies of all the letters, including her termination notice, and she sent them all to Nashville attorney Gary Blackburn. She sought severance pay and attorney's fees.
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A former high ranking executive at Weigh Down told Baptist Press that at least 35 employees were pressured into resigning from the ministry because they would not join Reminent Fellowship and two others were fired. The executive, who wished her a main anonymous, said even he was pressured to join her church. He said, quote on many occasions Gwen had spoken to the employees during devotionals and strongly suggested that we all come and share in their worship service. The last week of my being there it became more of a you need to be there and support what we're doing or don't take a paycheck from me. End quote. When asked about Anita's allegations, the former executive confirmed her story, saying, quote it's true. End quote. The anonymous source continued in the article saying, quote I resigned because I didn't agree with the Reminent Fellowship doctrine. The fact was she was pushing this church on the staff and I didn't agree with the stance she had taken to pressure people to being part of that church and not have a choice. That wasn't right. I couldn't condone the direction she was heading. End quote.
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The employees departure started a domino effect among other workers unhappy with a theological direction of Weigh Down. The executive said, quote this was not a resignation to hurt anyone. I had been very close to her family. We all would like to know why Ms Shamblin won't change her ways. It would be my opinion that the issues to her are power and control. She wants to have it her way. End quote.
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Other former employees agreed with that assessment, calling the Reminent Fellowship a cult. Anita said, quote. For a person to say they're the only one teaching the truth is a red flag. The message we were getting was one of condemnation If you're overweight, gwen said that you couldn't love God end quote. Another former employee, fearful for personal safety, also confirmed Anita's story. They too also wanted to remain anonymous and said quote Gwen panicked. She wanted Anita to sign a release saying she had voluntarily quit. She was afraid of Anita and Gwen realized she didn't have a right to tell people where to go to church end quote. When Baptist Press contacted Gwen about everything, she told them she would not comment about former employees because her company is a privately held corporation. Attorney Gary Blackburn filed the five lawsuits individually and combined them into one case. During a deposition conducted by Gary with Gwen. She compares way down to the Holocaust and she means it in a good way here. Take a listen.
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When people were in prison camps and ate less food, they all swam, All of them Shamlet. Surely you're not making a comparison between the forced starvation of a population in middle-class Americans eating habits.
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Are you honestly doing that?
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I have been for 15 years and a lot of people have responded.
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The case was ultimately settled outside of court and confidentiality agreements were signed, so we don't have any more information on the outcome of the settlement and Gary isn't offering up any other information either. This won't be the last time Gwen and Reminant Fellowship will be in the headlines. A lot of Gwen's messages in Reminant Fellowship are focused on obedience. As we know, gwen means being obedient when it comes to food, but it was also instructed for women to obey their husbands and children to obey their parents. The church went as far as encouraging discipline like spanking or hitting children when they disobey. Somehow and I say this because there's conflict on where the information came from, whether it was from Gwen, reminant Fellowship leaders or other congregants of the church Somehow, members would use long glue sticks to hit their children, since they hurt but didn't leave much of a mark. Now, when I say long glue sticks, I'm talking about the ones that go in the hot glue guns. During one of Gwen's sermons she gave this message quote the way you show God that you are answering to him is through obeying your mother and your father on the first time. If you do it on the second or the third time or you are slow to obey, you are being your own God and nobody playing around like that can ever go to heaven. If you do not obey mommy and daddy the first time, you will be taken out and you will be very, very sorry. End quote.
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In 2001, nashville CBS affiliate WTVF investigated how way down workshop leaders spent money. Gwen said half of the proceeds went to the government and were paid as taxes and the other half were put back into the program Under Reminant Fellowship's umbrella and the tax exempt status. Gwen purchased a 25-acre pre-Civil War plantation hoag called Ashlawn, located at 902 Franklin Pike two miles south of Brentwood. It was built in 1832 by Richard and Marianne Christmas. Gwen believed in having as many services as possible throughout the church to keep everything in house, from handyman services to babysitting, hairdressers, piano lessons and homeschooling the children. Little was done outside of the Remnant Fellowship participants and community. Remnant Fellowship also had its own recording studio and publication company. Remnant Publications published Gwen's third book, exodus Devotional, in 2002.
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On October 8, 2003, cobb County fire and rescue officials were dispatched to 611 Factory Shoals Drive, mabelton and Atlanta suburb for an unconscious, unresponsive child. The boy was taken to Cobb Hospital and was then transferred to the Scottish Wright Children's Hospital in Atlanta the next day, eight-year-old Joseph Smith would be pronounced dead and the boy's body condition and the family's connections would raise major red flags for the investigators. And that's where we're going to leave off for this episode. Be sure to tune in next week as we delve into the death of a child and how it all ties into this case. Full disclosure I will be going over the autopsy report of this child so you are aware, listener, discretion will be advised for next episode and it is going to be tough to listen to, but it's important to the case to get all the information out there and I promise you will understand why that is.
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But I just want to give you all a heads up. So please, please, please, download and subscribe Crime Connoisseurs wherever you listen to your podcasts and you can follow on Instagram at Crime Connoisseurs. If you have a case that you'd like to suggest that I cover, please feel free to let me know. You can click the link in the bio and fill out the forms where it'll have the case suggestion, or you can send me an email and put in the subject title case suggestion at CrimeConnoisseurs at gmailcom. In the meantime, keep it class econosaurus and I'll catch you on the next case.