Gwen Shamblin

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Gwen Shamblin

Born	Memphis, Tennessee, U.S.
Occupation	Author and Registered Dietician
Genres	Self-help, Non-fiction

Official website http://www.gwenshamblin.org/

Gwen Shamblin is an American Christian non-fiction author and leader of the Remnant Fellowship Church. The most distinctive aspect of her writing is its combination of weight loss programs with Christianity. Shamblin is married and has two children.^[1]

According to her website, Ms. Shamblin is a registered dietitian, consultant and an instructor of nutrition at University of Memphis.^[2] Before she started writing, she earned a master’s degree in dietetics from University of Tennessee, in Knoxville.^[3]

1 The Weigh Down Diet
2 Remnant Fellowship Church
3 In the media
4 Criticism
5 Legal cases
6 References
7 External links

[edit] The Weigh Down Diet

Gwen Shamblin is the author of The Weigh Down Diet (ISBN 0-385-49324-X). First published in 1997, this diet advises using spirituality to avoid overeating and has sold more than 1.2 million copies.^[4] Since that time she has written Rise Above (ISBN 0-7852-6876-6) and a devotional book called Exodus (ISBN 1-892729-00-8).

Shamblin teaches that there are two very different needs in each person; a need for food and an emotional need. According to Ms. Shamblin, people should only eat when they feel real, physical hunger and stop when full; prayer and Bible reading will fill emotional needs instead of food. Overeating is equated with greed. A core principle of the Weigh Down Diet, when people feel an urge to snack but are not experiencing true physiological "hunger", Shamblin encourages participants to read the Bible instead.^[5]

[edit] Remnant Fellowship Church

Gwen Shamblin is a leader in and a founder of the Remnant Fellowship Church. The church takes its name from the Book of Ezra 9:8-9, which mentions a "faithful remnant" of followers.^[6] According to the church's website, it currently has over 120 locations worldwide.^[7] The church was started in 1999 in Brentwood, Tennessee.

In a 2001 interview with The New Yorker, Shamblin stated that she felt called by God to start Remnant Fellowship after noticing that some users of the Weigh Down program were beginning to gain back their weight. This led her to theorize that the mainstream Protestant doctrine of "Eternal Security" leads some people to believe they have a license to sin.^[8]

[edit] In the media

Shamblin has recently been featured on The Today Show,^[9] DaySide,^[10] and The Early Show.^[11] Participants from the Weigh Down Workshop have been featured on the cover of Good Housekeeping,^[12] in the Ladies' Home Journal,^[13] First magazine,^[14] Quick and Simple,^[15] and in numerous newspaper articles. Most recently, The Tyra Banks Show^[16] devoted an hour long program to Shamblin, the Weigh Down Workshop, the Fellowship and participants from Weigh Down programs.

[edit] Criticism

[edit] Diet Principles

Other dietitians have questioned the soundness of Shamblin's diet advice, which focuses on faith instead of healthy eating habits or exercise.^[17]^[18] In the book Born Again Bodies: Flesh and Spirit in American Christianity (ISBN 0520242408), author Marie Griffith, a Princeton associate professor of religion, examines the trend of religion-based dieting. Griffith credits Shamblin for the new wave of interest in creating "a more holy body", and substantial sections of the work examine Shamblin's movement.^[19] Griffith notes "In Shamblin's world, people who don't lose weight often feel like failures. If they don't lose weight, it's a failure of discipline; it's a failure of obedience."^[20] At the same time, Griffith's work places Shamblin's movement squarely within a historical tradition of perfecting one's body in order to be more Christ-like, or fasting and dieting in order to feel closer to God.

[edit] Religious Beliefs

Gwen Shamblin's weight loss programs were initially very well received within Christian churches. Tens of thousands of churches in many different denominations used her materials to teach her faith based weight loss program in the late 80s and early 90s.^[21] Controversy arose when she began to teach that the doctrine of the Trinity was not Biblical, which led Thomas Nelson Publishers to cancel the publication of Exodus, her next work.^[22] In a letter to her followers sent to clarify her position on the Trinity, Shamblin wrote : "The reason all of this is important is that if you do not understand that God is the clear authority and that Jesus was under God's authority, then you will not have a clear picture of what it means to be Christ like. Jesus suffered, obeyed, submitted, denied his will, and made it his food to do the will of the Father."^[23]

Shamblin's weight loss program and religious association was recently reviewed on Amateurscentist.org http://amateurscientistblog.blogspot.com/2008/05/lest-ye-diet_08.html by Christian Walters, an atheist, who reviews cults and pseudoscience for the popular blog.

[edit] Remnant Fellowship Church

Some people have said that Remnant Church members are encouraged to move to Tennessee to be closer to the church if possible; about 650 members are estimated to have moved.^[24] In an interview where Shamblin was asked if Remnant is encouraging families to move to the Nashville area from elsewhere, she replied "We had 80 members for a long time. We bought that land. And we were building the church at that time. It just grew little by little by little. Then inside the last year, when all of a sudden all these people wanted to move, well, I'm not going to tell them where to live. And I said, Are you sure God is asking you to sell your land? And they would say, We feel God calling us to move. And we want to move. Every time we come down to visit we don't want to leave because we have such a good time."^[25]

Remnant members moving to be near the Brentwood based church caused a significant media buzz when a Remnant member ran for office during the 2005 Brentwood City Council elections. The church was openly criticized because of several members in Brentwood that shared their residence with their adult children and at least two other members had allowed a second family to live at their home while purchasing their own residence in Brentwood. The City Attorney, Roger Horner, stated that the living arrangements did not go against city ordinances, which did not address who can live in a single-family home. The media attention brought challenging questions for the City Council on what constitutes a family and whether the city can dictate who lives in a house that is designed to be a single-family residence. Also at issue during the election was whether the additional families had the right to vote in Brentwood. Williamson County Election Administrator, Ann Beard, said that they could vote as long as they certify that they live at a certain address by bringing in identification such as a driver's license, vehicle registration or utility bill addressed to them, and as long as they made the registration deadline. "It's not illegal as far as we're concerned," she said.^[26] The church has asked the city for rezoning of their property to start a private school to teach Remnant Church children from kindergarten through fifth grade.^[26]

Shamblin has also been criticised for reportedly calling Remnant Fellowship The New Jerusalem. In an in-depth interview, a local journalist asked Shamblin whether this was referring to the Remnant Church congregation or an actual place that could be constructed for Remnant members. Referencing a biblical account of a discussion between Jesus and the woman at the well^[27] Shamblin said, "It's not that it's even here or it's there. It's in the heart of man... The people have understood that it is in the heart. Now there is nothing wrong with building a structure. But we believe that it is all peoples all over the world that are doing the will of the Father in heaven."^[25]

Shamblin has stated that the church is not ecumenical. She has also stated in several interviews that while she believes women should be subservient to men in the service of the Lord, that women can "share their gifts", including the gift of prophecy.^[25] When asked directly if she believes herself a prophet, Shamblin has said that others have called her a prophet.^[28]

[edit] Legal cases

[edit] Employee Lawsuits

In 2000, Shamblin began to advocate specific ideas about Christian theology and began to form her own church. At this time, according to a former Weigh Down employee, approximately forty Weigh Down employees were encouraged to resign or let go for disagreements related to the change in how Weigh Down principles would be communicated.^[29] Several of these former employees then sued Shamblin on the grounds of religious discrimination.^[30] These employee lawsuits were settled out of court, and as part of the settlement the exact amount of proceeds generated by the for-profit Weigh Down workshop were sealed.^[31]

[edit] Josef Smith Case and Shamblin on Child Discipline

Remnant Fellowship Church was investigated after the death of Josef Smith, a child who authorities said was severely abused by his parents.^[32] Allegations about what Shamblin teaches regarding child discipline led to a raid on the church^[33] after an audio tape was leaked to a local television news outlet in Nashville and broadcast. On the recording, Mrs. Shamblin can be heard to say:"If they're not scared of a spanking, you haven't spanked them. If you haven't really spanked them, you don't love them. You love yourself."^[34]

At the time of the trial, some news reports said that Shamblin suggested spanking children with glue sticks.^[35] Mrs. Shamblin insisted it did not come from her.^[36]

Although the case (Georgia v. Smith), prompted authorities to raid the Weigh Down Workshop's Franklin headquarters in 2004, church officials were not charged with wrongdoing in the case. Before jury selection, the defense attorney for the Smiths stated to the judge that they had made a deal with prosecutors to limit the church's involvement in the trial.^[37] Police investigators who testified in court said they could not find any link between the boy's death and the religious institution.^[38]

Josef Smith's parents were sentenced to life plus thirty years for murder in the first degree on March 26, 2007. Remnant Church funded the defense of the parents and continues to solicit donations for them via the internet.^[39] According to WTVF NewsChannel 5 Nashville, "Even Remnant's most vocal critics insist they do not believe Ms. Shamblin or anyone ever intended for child abuse to occur."^[34]

[edit] Website Libel and Defamation Lawsuit

On March 15, 2007, Shamblin and 66 Remnant Fellowship members filed a libel suit against an anonymous blogger and Rafael Martinez, a blogger for Spirit Watch. The Spirit Watch website contains personal stories from former members of Remnant Church that allege bizarre behavior from Shamblin, and comparisons are made with activities of the Remnant Church to activities of well-known cults.^[40] The websites also claimed the Remnant Church advocates abuse and starvation of children. The Remnant Church said the claims are false.^[41]^[42] Remnant Fellowship lawyer Samuel J. Harris told the press that the blogger "...ran a website that put pictures of remnant children up and put in statements that came from Mr. Martinez site that remnant advocates the abuse of children... Not true.... And also that they advocate the starvation of children.... Not true.”^[42] Mr. Martinez stated that all of the information on his website was factual, and that he believed the lawsuit was a ploy by Remnant Fellowship to silence their critics. The attorney representing the church said the lawsuit was not an effort to silence Martinez' criticism and that the church would consider dropping the lawsuit if Martinez said that Remnant Church and Shamblin do not advocate starvation and torture of children.^[41] The anonymous blogger took down the blog site^[42] and on April 11, Martinez announced that the lawsuit against him had been dropped.^[43]