Death of Gwen Shamblin, a leader of the Fat-Shame Cult Someone’s plane crashed on the way to a MAGA rally

The sects make prophetic promises that they can almost never fulfill, thus forcing them to modify those guarantees to keep their flock in order and the scams theirs is alive. In that regard, few have encountered a greater obstacle than the Remnant Countryside Church, where founder and leader Gwen Shamblin regularly preaches loyalty to God—primarily by maintaining a circle of faith. slim waist and train children to be obedient and obedient — leading to financial glory, family rewards, and morale. That was all well and good during the prosperous times of the Remnant Fellowship, but it turned into a serious problem on May 29, 2021, when a plane flown by Joe Lara, Shamblin’s husband, crashed. en route to a MAGA Florida rally, instantly killing Shamblin and everyone else on board.

That tragedy is considered a de facto vandal for The Way Down: God, Greed, and Cults by Gwen ShamblinHBO Max’s docuseries from last September and that’s where director Marina Zenovich took it The way down part 2, a two-part coda investigating what this disaster meant for Remnant Association Church and the Weigh Down Workshop dietitian business of Shamblin. The latter vehicle was the first vehicle that brought fame and fortune to Shamblin himself, a nutritionist who argued that true believers should turn their appetites into devotion to the Almighty. It was a program that saw weight loss as an act of piety, and through books, VHS tapes, and church classes, it made Shamblin a national focus. Furthermore, it allowed her to found the Remnant Union Church, a religious organization based in Brentwood, Tennessee, which Zenovich reveals to be a popular Christian sect that punishes heavyset, its members isolated from friends and loved ones, brainwashing children to embrace their Trinity- denying doctrines, women being oppressed through false power structures, and urging parents abuse and beat their children for submission.

Noted for both her engaging lectures and her growing long hair (which eventually grows in a remarkable foot-high hive), Shamblin promotes the view that great things come to those who kneel before God, while bad things are a by-product of infidelity. So her untimely death — even more so than her niece’s earlier sudden death — was a major complication for the church. The way downThe second part was curious about how the organization’s leaders would explain the situation to their legions of members, and whether anyone would buy what they were selling. However, what it does produce is more than a little fart. Waiting six months before delivering its final two installments was clearly not long enough, as director Zenovich offered some insight into the future of Remnant Fellowship Church, who plan to reconfigure the school. Its theories — and hierarchical structure — remain changing, or at least remain largely hidden from public view.

There are no interesting bomb blasts about the next stage of the church or about the fate of Lara’s ex-partner Natasha Pavlovich and their daughter, The way down turned its attention to the plane crash itself. Early indications are that Lara, Shamblin’s amateur pilot husband – a former actor, who apparently married Shamblin not out of love or piety rather than out of desire for a rich benefactor, who would give him the high life (and country music career) he aspired to— He was not equipped to handle the type of aircraft and low visibility weather conditions, he had to face on the day of disaster. CGI reconstructions of the ship’s flight plan, set for Lara’s last radio transmission, corroborate that theory, although as a formal comment it is certainly possible that a technical glitch had occurred. cause fatal accidents. As for the sustainability of Remnant Fellowship Church, it’s too early to tell.

Therefore, The way downThe return of participation feels decidedly early. There are tantalizingly tantalizing things that Shamblin’s daughter Elizabeth – seen looking like a creepy skeleton in archival videos – may not be the obvious heir that everyone assumed she would be. her, and it is more predictable that Elizabeth’s brother Michael (whose relationship with the church has always been fractured) has divorced his wife and severed ties with his mother’s empire. For the most part, though, Zenovich seems to have jumped the gun in detailing what’s next for Shamblin’s cult and many of the artists she nurtured along the way, providing meager revelations could push her story forward. These two extra episodes feel like addenda that, in most respects, end the story with an indefinite, uncertain note about what the future Remain Church will look like in the next era. its follower — if, that is, it continues to exist.

There aren’t many exciting ways to grow, The way down turns inward for its concluding chapter, which addresses how the surviving United Council Church combats the negative publicity generated by the institute’s late-2021 premiere. Even while there, though, Zenovich informs us of the surprising measures taken by Shamblin’s successors — namely, correspondence to HBO denying all allegations forced against them and websites set up to propagate their self-serving stories. Naturally, the Remnant Fellowship Church does not like to be seen as a sect that advises men to keep their wives and daughters under their dominion; fully support child murder members Joseph and Sonya Smith, who were found guilty of murdering their 8-year-old son Josef; and it’s done like a monetization venture designed to create the pocketbook of Shamblin and Lara, who have enjoyed countless fruits of their followers’ labor. But that was obvious before, and The way down part 2 Add little detail or nuance to such ideas.

The most surprising is The way downThe second season of season two features interviews with a handful of survivors who survived its premiere last fall, but spends almost no time clarifying their stories. Instead, these individuals put more effort into defending themselves against gullible online claims that they cheated than they recounted their unpleasant personal challenges, which made both disappointed that their content is not entirely convincing (because of the nonsense Shamblin for sale), and because they offer nothing that would expand our understanding of the day-to-day workings of Remnant Fellowship. . What director Zenovich took most from these conversations was that Shamblin was also accused of being homophobic — hardly the kind of eye-opener that would justify a disappointingly meager sequel. this hope.