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.
According to her website, Ms. Shamblin is a registered dietitian, consultant and was an instructor of food and nutrition at the University of Memphis for five years and she worked in the state health department for an additional five years. Before she started writing, she earned an undergraduate degree in dietetics from University of Tennessee, in Knoxville and then her master's degree in food and nutrition from the University of Memphis.
Shamblin began her consulting practice in the area of weight control in 1980 and in 1986, she founded the Weigh Down Workshop which eventually held classes in all fifty states and every continent. Initially offered through audiotapes and small classes taught by Mrs. Shamblin in a retail setting, this teaching began yielding unprecedented results resulting in appearances on CNN's Larry King Live, BBC, 20/20, The View, as well as in such magazines as Good Housekeeping and Woman’s Day. Participants were not only losing their weight while eating regular foods, but they were using the same Bible-based principles to turn away from other addictions such as smoking or alcohol abuse.
Gwen and her husband David have been married for well over 20 years and currently have two grown children who are married and who reside with their spouses and children close to the Shamblins’ home in Brentwood, Tennessee.
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. Since that time she has written Rise Above (ISBN 0-7852-6876-6), a devotional book called Exodus (ISBN 1-892729-00-8) and most recently in 2007 The Legend to The Treasure (ISBN 1-892729-80-6).
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.
Gwen Shamblin has developed seven different seminars over the past two decades (not including revisions) through Weigh Down, a Christian based weight loss ministry sponsored by The Remnant Fellowship Church. These seminars teach people "how to transfer a relationship with food over to a loving relationship toward God." Weigh Down teaches people how to eat food only when they are truly physically hungry and how to find the control to stop eating when that physical hunger has been satisfied.
Exodus Out of Egypt: The Change Series
Weigh Down's 8-week foundational seminar. Their websites states "You will find self-control that you never thought you could have as you enjoy all the wonderful and God-given foods you have been denying yourself for so long. And the best thing is, you will no longer feel controlled by the food or have the desire to binge at night when no one is looking!"
The Last Exodus
This seminar targets basic weight loss for youth and young adults ages 8—28. This program states, "If you have ever felt yourself entrapped or addicted to anything in this world, such as food, disrespectful attitude, cigarettes/alcohol, TV/videogames, lust, money or anything else, and couldn't break free, this is the program for you! Come experience God's deliverance from anything that has enslaved you."
The Legend to The Treasure
Also a book, the description for this class states, "Do you find yourself occasionally still going to the food for comfort or zoning out with TV or getting caught up in the worries of the world? What you have treasured is about to be revealed. Join Gwen Shamblin on this 8-week seminar that will challenge, encourage, and convict you more than anything you have ever experienced before."
Exodus from Strongholds
Developed in 2000, this 12-week seminar is advertised to be "geared more towards helping individuals break free from addictions and strongholds."
Weigh Down Advanced
This follow-up to Exodus Out of Egypt and Legend to the Treasure is a 10-week seminars advertised to "take you beyond the physical aspects of your hunger and fullness into a deep, convicting study of your heart."
El Ultimo Exodo
This class is taken from The Last Exodus and is subtitled in Spanish and has testimonies in Spanish.
Weigh Down at Home Series
This is the Weigh Down Workshop’s original weight loss basic at home series. The program advertises to have "everything you need to keep you focused on the nights you are not in class."
Gwen Shamblin is a leader in and a founder of the Remnant Fellowship Church. Remnant Fellowship members believe the path they follow is the only true path. Church members are encouraged to not engage in behavior that goes against biblical teachings. The church takes its name from the Book of Ezra 9:8-9, which mentions a "faithful remnant" of followers. According to the church's website, it currently has over 100 locations worldwide. 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. This is an important part of her church doctrine.
Shamblin has been featured on The Today Show,DaySide, and The Early Show. Participants from the Weigh Down Workshop have been featured on the cover of Good Housekeeping, in the Ladies' Home Journal, in People Magazine,First magazine, Quick and Simple, and in numerous newspaper articles.In 2007, The Tyra Banks Show devoted an hour long program to Shamblin, the Weigh Down Workshop, the Fellowship and participants from Weigh Down programs.
In 2009, Gwen and Weigh Down Ministries was featured on such television programs as WeTV’s Secret Lives of Women, The Insider , and MBC-TV’s Morning Show .
Alberta Report
The Weigh Down program teaches the differences between worshipping God and idolizing food, between true "stomach hunger" and false "head hunger," and on a practical level, between eating until satisfied a'nd eating until everything on the plate has vanished. A workshop leader calls Weigh Down an answer to prayer. "I was drawn to the fridge, drawn to food. Now I turn to God instead of the fridge," she says, having lost 35 pounds in 10 months, with no inclination to put it back on.
Other dietitians have questioned the soundness of Shamblin's diet advice, which focuses on faith instead of healthy eating habits or exercise. 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. 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." 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.
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. Controversy arose when she began to teach that the doctrine of the Trinity was not Biblical. Gwen Shamblin made it clear that she believes Jesus Christ is not God but rather God's son [1]. This led Thomas Nelson Publishers to cancel the publication of Exodus, her next work. 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."
Additional Criticism
In 2001, NewsChannel 5, A local Nashville news station, aired a story entitled, “Is it a ministry or just big business?” looking into how Weigh Down Workshop’s money was spent. The interview ended with Shamblin stating that "this money -- half of it goes to the government, the other half goes to keep it going so someone else can be helped."..."She says she would sell her belongings to keep the ministry going." The article states that Weigh Down meets in 30,000 groups across the country, and one participant interviewed claims to have lost 196 pounds through the program. The Weigh Down Workshop has since been donated by the Shamblins and has become a non-profit, tax-deductible ministry within Remnant Fellowship, which is a registered 501c3 with the IRS.
NewsChannel 5 aired an additional story in 2004 regarding a possible connection with the murder of an 8-year-old boy by his parents, Joseph and Sonya Smith, who were members of Remnant Fellowship. The Smith's defense attorney "told the judge that they have made a deal with prosecutors to limit the church's involvement in the case" during the first day of the court proceedings aired on CourtTV. It was agreed they would call only the church members necessary for the case in order to keep the focus on the case at hand and not create unnecessary media speculation. Church officials were not accused of wrongdoing in the case. The District Attorney's Office for the Cobb Judicial Circuit stated that "Nothing came of any allegations against this church" and also that Mr. Arora (Joseph Smith's defense attorney) "denied he represented the church". Also, "Police testified they could not find any link between the boy's death and the religious institution." The church continues to maintain the Smiths’ innocence.
Libel Suits Against Remnant Fellowship Criticsmoreless
There have been two cases where Shamblin and other Remnant Fellowship church members have filed libel suits against critics. The first was a libel suit filed by 67 members of Remnant Fellowship, including Gwen Shamblin, against an anonymous blogger, who posted private information about the members on his website, and Rafael Martinez, a vocal critic of Remnant Fellowship, who claimed Gwen was leading a cult.. The blogger recanted and posted an apology on his site resulting in the church retracting the lawsuit.
Martinez, however, had continued in his claims which had precipitated a second suit against him . On March 22, 2010 this 2nd lawsuit was heard in Williamson County Circuit Court in TN. The judge granted the defense's motion for summary judgement ruling against Gwen Shamblin and Tedd Anger's case and dropping the case against Rafael.
