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CB Media and Publishing Review of Weigh Down Workshop
Weigh Down Workshop

Weigh Down Workshop review: Deceptive nature ignored by media 2

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12:00 am EDT
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http://spiritwatch.org/RFblingmedia.htm

A fact of life is that dangerous religious cults use front groups to lure and ensnare unwary new recruits today. The complaint is that even though so identified, it often doesn't matter to the producers of several major media outlets who should have known better than to feature these religiously abusive groups as just being another benign spirituality. The Weigh Down Workshop (WDW), a so-called "faith based" diet is actually the recruiting arm for an extremist cult called Remnant Fellowship in Franklin, Tennessee and led by a self-proclaimed prophet named Gwen Shamblin. Even though abundant evidence exists that this organization is disrupting families and spreading spiritual abuse nationwide, and even after phone calls, emails and conversations are held with their representatives, certain members of the media still flock to her headquarters. This is absolutely disgusting.

From the Fox News Channel to NBC to "Good Housekeeping" and even the "Tyra Banks Show", the rush to feature skinny people testifying to the divine infallibility of the religion driving the WDW Program goes on. The abysmally unethical and irresponsible absence of sound journalistic practice by several major media outlets today continues to go on unabated. It is a story that needs to be told and a complaint that needs to be heard everywhere.

The WDW and Remnant Fellowship gain results by religious terrorizing of their overweight membership by warning them that they are hellbound if found to be overweight. If you were told that being 20 pounds too heavy would result in your eternal damnation by a bunch of skinny, pretty people who have held weight loss for X amount of months, wouldn't you believe them and do what it takes to comply... Especially if "Ms. Gwen" made "suggestions" that you needed to weigh Y pounds or less?

It's one of the most overlooked stories of our day. This is just our two centavos...

Rev. Rafael D Martinez
Co-Director
Spiritwatch Ministries

2 comments
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blanchef
Snohomish, US
Mar 04, 2011 7:05 pm EST

This article is absolutely the truth. Gwen is a fraud. Beware of Weigh Down and Remnant Fellowship. I left a year ago and still in a shambles.

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Saoirse
,
Mar 23, 2008 6:33 am EDT

I have to absolutely agree with the complaint above. I'm a British human rights advocate and activist with an interesting in abusive and criminal cultic behaviours, and there is a huge and growing body of documentation demonstrating the manipulative and damaging behaviour exhibited by the Remnant Fellowship and 'weight-loss' classes used as a recruitment ground for it.

Given that Gwen Shamblin herself has been caught lying about the content of recorded telephone calls (regarding the abusive treatment of 8-year-old Josef Smith, which led to his death), and has admitted she would lie to protect her 'church', do we really need the media at large presenting her and her endeavours as the next best thing? Multiple testimonies from ex-members document the coercion and shame that members must often endure in order to please this so-called 'prophetess', who also makes several stunningly inaccurate (and easily disproven) claims about the nature of the 'early church' and its practice in order to ensure that her members 'toe the party line' for fear of expulsion.

Popular media coverage of these workshops and the cult which surrounds them can only mislead the general public into a state of danger, where they trust Ms. Shamblin et al without asking the very real and concerning questions about her character and the practice of the 'church' she espouses. This short comment cannot begin to address the many profound issues of human rights and emotional abuse that are raised by her practice.