Gwen Shamblin 7: I am the Potato Chip of Life

[Hane]

4 hours ago, Tuesday’s Child said:

That’s the dumbest shit I’ve ever seen. ? 

Oh Almighty God, yes. Even when I was that age, I would have thought so. The screaming! The jumping up and down! The toilet-paper-looking streamers! The...Heartlee? WTAF?

[throwaway9988]

The whole Sindell situation is pretty pathetic/weird.  And Remnant Fellowship has so many commingling clans that things will probably get even weirder in the upcoming years. 

 

HOORAY for Heartlee!! WELCOME to the sisterhood of toxic interpersonal relationships, body dysmorphia, and constant judgment!!! Who WOULDNT want to be part of the Remnant sorority?!?! Remember not to let the sickeningly sweet smile falter for even a second or you’ll be judged about that too!! LOVE you gurl!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (This is how I remember many Remnant members writing emails and facebook posts all throughout my highschool and college years. Overly excited with all-caps and exclamation points everywhere, and with random words bolded or italicized as if the writer were imagining “Miss Gwen” speaking the sentence and saying those words particularly slowly or loudly. My gmail archives are still full of thousands of emails that look like they were texted by a sixth grade girl who had just chugged a Four Loko, but were actually written by David Martin.)

 

Previous posters definitely hit the nail on the head with regard to Remnant’s attitude towards medicine. Remnant is extremely inconsistent and hypocritical when it comes to science in general.  Remnant members run straight to the doctors when they get cancer in order to obtain evidence-based medicine, but then pretend scientific evidence is wrong in other areas. The smartphones, cars, computers, internet, etc. they use daily are technological developments made possible by hundreds of years of hundreds of thousands of scientists. Scientists performing experiments, gathering data, and having the intellectual honesty and rigor to discard or revise hypotheses that are false (which is more honest than religious people have ever been when faced with evidence that conflicts with their preconceived ideas) on their way to discovering what is true. Few things in our modern lives would be possible if scientists were not correct about 99.9% of the things they think the evidence is showing.

 

But Gwen Shamblin tries to pretend like all the physicists, geneticists, psychiatrists, archeologists, paleontologists, and a few other types of scientists on earth are just wrong about certain things that she is magically right about ? If she actually had a deeper education in the sciences (I don’t count her recitation of entry-level digestive processes with the words ‘amino acids’ or ‘triglycerides’ thrown in every once in a while to impress people who don’t know any better), Gwen would know that medicine including genetics and psychiatry boils down to applied biology, biology is just the chemistry that leads to life, and chemistry is just applied atomic physics, etc. One can’t just pick and choose; all the hard sciences are ultimately unified. And if one person is going to make extraordinary claims that entire fields of scientific evidence are wrong, then they had better have ten times as much extraordinary scientific evidence of their own to back up those claims instead of some biased anecdotes. At least Gwen isn’t quite stupid enough to tell people not to go to doctors, since that usually just leads to jail time for child endangerment/neglect/murder, and we all know she isn’t ready for another child murder scandal.

Edited June 7, 2019 by throwaway9988
After reviewing old Remnant Fellowship emails to ensure I was representing them accurately, I was required to add even more italics and exclamation points.

[SuperNova]

8 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

We love the master that we obey.

Is Gwen Shamblin Lara aware that it's possible to love something without being mastered by it? Healthy relationships of any kind seem to be an unfamiliar concept to her. It's entirely possible to love food and not be controlled by it. Gwen lacks the basic knowledge that love and obsession are two different things. 

[Leftitinmysnood]

Ah, after a little research, it appears Daniel and Becki Sindell's mom, Vicki was the first to marry into Remnant, by marrying Mr. Holbrook (Jeff?). They both must have brought kids into the marriage, she being previously divorced with 4 kids. I was invited to her wedding to Mr. Holbrook, but didn't go. There is a lot of baggage on the kids' part. I'm sorry that this cult is what makes them feel ok about themselves.

[RFsurvivor]

6 hours ago, DaisyD said:

Replace food with possessions in that devotional Gwen Shamblin Lara, and tell me if you're right with God. 

She lists all sorts of vices all the time, but never the accumulation of wealth. Does she ever even host new members like the rest of her Remnant Fellowship flock does? Does she help take care of their every need the way the others do? She's the one making the money off them. What a hypocrite. 

She does actually host events at her house Ashlawn. 

@throwaway9988 - re reading emails from back then is amazingly funny. Why does everything need to be bolded, italics, so much punctuation?  

[OperationSunshine]

3 hours ago, Leftitinmysnood said:

Ah, after a little research, it appears Daniel and Becki Sindell's mom, Vicki was the first to marry into Remnant, by marrying Mr. Holbrook (Jeff?). They both must have brought kids into the marriage, she being previously divorced with 4 kids. I was invited to her wedding to Mr. Holbrook, but didn't go. There is a lot of baggage on the kids' part. I'm sorry that this cult is what makes them feel ok about themselves.

My understanding is that they weren't involved with Remnant when they married, but joined fairly soon after together. I think between the two of them they have 5 or 6 kids? I don't think they're all in TN or involved with RF though. 

[Red Hair, Black Dress]

10 hours ago, Hane said:

The...Heartlee? WTAF?

I seem to remember the younger girl's name is something like Heavenlee

Edited to add:  I stand corrected -- a tiny bit of quick sleuthing = the younger daughter is Everley

 

Edited June 8, 2019 by Red Hair, Black Dress

[Leftitinmysnood]

49 minutes ago, OperationSunshine said:

My understanding is that they weren't involved with Remnant when they married, but joined fairly soon after together. I think between the two of them they have 5 or 6 kids? I don't think they're all in TN or involved with RF though. 

Yeah, I'm pretty sure her oldest son joined the military before she remarried. There are old Remnant photos of her hosting gatherings in CA and I know at least one other person who is a Gwenite remotely, although not a high level member.

[OperationSunshine]

55 minutes ago, Leftitinmysnood said:

Yeah, I'm pretty sure her oldest son joined the military before she remarried. There are old Remnant photos of her hosting gatherings in CA and I know at least one other person who is a Gwenite remotely, although not a high level member.

So how does that work? I know Gwen encourages members to stay away from family members who are openly against her group, but what about family that just didn't join? In their case, kids who were already out of the house. 

[RFsurvivor]

Just now, OperationSunshine said:

So how does that work? I know Gwen encourages members to stay away from family members who are openly against her group, but what about family that just didn't join? In their case, kids who were already out of the house. 

There are two general types of non Remnant people from RFs point of view. 

1) potential members

2) mocker

as long as you aren’t a mocker, they consider you a potential member. Basically a mocker won’t likely change their ways so don’t throw pearls before swine, but anyone who is not a mocker is possible to become a member. 

[OperationSunshine]

2 hours ago, RFsurvivor said:

There are two general types of non Remnant people from RFs point of view. 

1) potential members

2) mocker

as long as you aren’t a mocker, they consider you a potential member. Basically a mocker won’t likely change their ways so don’t throw pearls before swine, but anyone who is not a mocker is possible to become a member. 

That explains a lot, thank you!

[AmazonGrace]

20 hours ago, formergothardite said:

And Gwen Shamblin Lara, do not expect us to believe that you aren't deeply in love with all your material possessions. 

I hereby dedicate today's devotional to you. 

We also learn that actually tobacco is fine, and everyone is still a binge eater. 

Two questions: What on earth is she cooking that requires so much strength? She sounds like a person suffering from some rare muscle wasting disorder who has to decide if they use their strength to shower or cook today. 

And if looking at recipes and discussing food is "giving your mind to food all day", why aren't endless discussions about not-eating-food giving your mind to food all day? She's probably more obsessed with food than most binge eaters who can usually think of something else occasionally. 

Spoiler

 

How to Fix the Heart

June 08, 2019

by Gwen Shamblin Lara

0 Comment

Notice that there is nothing inherently wrong with alcohol, tobacco, food, credit cards, or sexual desires. What is wrong is with our heart. Tearing up the credit card is not going to keep our heart from materialism. Making the food have less fat is not going to make our heart less greedy for food. Locking people up in a detoxification center to bring them down off alcohol or substance abuse is not going to fix their heart.

We fell in love with the food by giving it our heart, soul, mind, and strength, which is included in this one behavior called obedience. We obeyed it. Food called us from the bed in the morning, and we used our strength to prepare it. We also used our strength to force more of it down into the body than the body called for. We gave it our mind all day long by looking through recipe books and discussing the latest diets with our friends, asking, “What do you get to eat on your diet?” We gave our soul to foods that were on the menu, and we gave our hearts to the 10 o’clock binge.

What we have to do now is clear: give heart, soul, mind, and strength to God. Every time we obey God with regard to food or with anything He is putting on our heart to work on, we will fall more in love with Him. Partly, this is because “He rewards those who earnestly seek him.” Hebrews 11:6 We are to earnestly, with a true heart, seek Him—not His wealth or His power—but Him. And part of the reason we fall in love through obedience, or keeping His commands, is that He answers the prayers of those who obey Him. John 14:14 says, “You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.”

“Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.” John 14:21

 

Edited June 8, 2019 by AmazonGrace

[Tuesday’s Child]

1 hour ago, AmazonGrace said:

I hereby dedicate today's devotional to you. 

We also learn that actually tobacco is fine, and everyone is still a binge eater. 

Two questions: What on earth is she cooking that requires so much strength? She sounds like a person suffering from some rare muscle wasting disorder who has to decide if they use their strength to shower or cook today. 

And if looking at recipes and discussing food is "giving your mind to food all day", why aren't endless discussions about not-eating-food giving your mind to food all day? She's probably more obsessed with food than most binge eaters who can usually think of something else occasionally. 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

How to Fix the Heart

June 08, 2019

by Gwen Shamblin Lara

0 Comment

Notice that there is nothing inherently wrong with alcohol, tobacco, food, credit cards, or sexual desires. What is wrong is with our heart. Tearing up the credit card is not going to keep our heart from materialism. Making the food have less fat is not going to make our heart less greedy for food. Locking people up in a detoxification center to bring them down off alcohol or substance abuse is not going to fix their heart.

We fell in love with the food by giving it our heart, soul, mind, and strength, which is included in this one behavior called obedience. We obeyed it. Food called us from the bed in the morning, and we used our strength to prepare it. We also used our strength to force more of it down into the body than the body called for. We gave it our mind all day long by looking through recipe books and discussing the latest diets with our friends, asking, “What do you get to eat on your diet?” We gave our soul to foods that were on the menu, and we gave our hearts to the 10 o’clock binge.

What we have to do now is clear: give heart, soul, mind, and strength to God. Every time we obey God with regard to food or with anything He is putting on our heart to work on, we will fall more in love with Him. Partly, this is because “He rewards those who earnestly seek him.” Hebrews 11:6 We are to earnestly, with a true heart, seek Him—not His wealth or His power—but Him. And part of the reason we fall in love through obedience, or keeping His commands, is that He answers the prayers of those who obey Him. John 14:14 says, “You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.”

“Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.” John 14:21

 

I agree, she’s ridiculous. I honestly would be stark-raving mad if I belonged to her cult. When you really stop & think about it, her whole “ministry” is food-focused. She keeps talking and talking and talking about food. Is there nothing else to focus on??? Good God, who cares? She sends such a contradicting message. So...are we NOT supposed to write out a grocery list, share recipes, talk about how delicious the meal was? Is that considered focusing on and/or worshiping the food? This is LITERALLY all this woman talks about. Yet...we aren’t supposed to focus on it. And to echo everyone else, I don’t think about food like Gwen says I do. I don’t adore it, I don’t dream about it, I don’t spend hours pouring over recipe books. I think she’s a twisted person who tries to MAKE people think they are sick in the head & they need her guidance. ***end rant***

Right after I posted this, my stomach growled ? ??????

Edited June 8, 2019 by Tuesday’s Child

[Red Hair, Black Dress]

Question about the RFers who "convinced" other family members to join up.  By other family I mean parents/ in-laws/ siblings (and their families)/ cousins/ adult children, etc, etc.  

Do these other family members actually buy what Gwen Shamlin Lara, leader of the cult Remnant Fellowship, is selling and go all in? Or do they join and give lip service to Gwod's nonsense in order to be able to see their RF brainwashed family members?

We know that Gwen Shamlin Lara tells her devoted followers to cut contact with their non-believing relatives. 

 

[throwaway9988]

Exactly like @RFsurvivor said above, if a family member takes a relatively passive attitude towards Remnant, then it would be a bit unusual for Gwen/leadership to command the Remnant members to stop associating with that family member.  Family members who join might have various motivations for joining, but if that family member is even considering joining Remnant, then they are probably not a mocker whom Remnant members would be commanded to cut contact with. 

Gwen knows that one of the most dangerous things for a religious charlatan like herself is to be not taken seriously.  Laughter and satire, not debate, are often the best weapons against ridiculous ideas. For instance, some people disagreed with Bill Nye's decision to debate against Ken Ham, because from the perspective of the audience, two ideas were both put on a stage and equal speaking time was provided in favor of each idea as if those two ideas were starting on equal footing...when the reality was that one side had a completely overwhelming amount of scientific evidence backing it up, and the other side had a few religious cranks trying to produce a bit of junk science and desperately convince people who didn't know any better. The fact that a debate was even taking place between the two ideas gave more merit to Ken Ham than he deserved.  In the same way, Gwen wants her cult to be thoughtfully considered by Remnant family members.  So when people refuse to do that, and instead simply call Gwen's ideas out for the bullshit they are, Gwen tries to tar and feather them as a mocker. If you're on this website, then you're a mocker.

When I was first in Remnant many years ago, Gwen was trying to add the acronym AOB to the Remnant lingo.  AOB was pronounced like the "ob" in "obstacle," and stood for Accuser of the Brethren.  Apparently there are several New Testament verses which call Satan the Accuser of the Brethren and talk about how he mocks and slanders God's truth in order to prevent people from following God.  Gwen was preaching that anyone, including some family members of Remnant members, who makes fun of Remnant or lies about it is essentially being an agent of Satan.  What constitutes lying about Remnant? Saying anything that contradicts Gwen's official propaganda, of course. The term never really caught on, and now Gwen mostly just calls anyone who dares to point out her obvious stupidity a mocker. 

 

 

Edited June 8, 2019 by throwaway9988

[OperationSunshine]

3 hours ago, Red Hair, Black Dress said:

Question about the RFers who "convinced" other family members to join up.  By other family I mean parents/ in-laws/ siblings (and their families)/ cousins/ adult children, etc, etc.  

Do these other family members actually buy what Gwen Shamlin Lara, leader of the cult Remnant Fellowship, is selling and go all in? Or do they join and give lip service to Gwod's nonsense in order to be able to see their RF brainwashed family members?

We know that Gwen Shamlin Lara tells her devoted followers to cut contact with their non-believing relatives. 

 

Unfortunately, everyone we know who has joined has fallen for it hook, line, and sinker. 

We do know many people who, like ourselves, are cautious with expressing our disdain to our RF friends because we don't want to loose them altogether... but the people I know who have joined did so because they genuinely belief Gwen's stuff.

[Briefly]

20 hours ago, RFsurvivor said:

There are two general types of non Remnant people from RFs point of view. 

1) potential members

2) mocker

as long as you aren’t a mocker, they consider you a potential member. Basically a mocker won’t likely change their ways so don’t throw pearls before swine, but anyone who is not a mocker is possible to become a member. 

RF sounds more and more like Scientology.  Mocker = Suppresive Person, for example.  Cutting off friends or family members who she considers to be Mockers sounds exactly like Scientology's SP directive.

[DaisyD]

On 6/7/2019 at 3:36 PM, RFsurvivor said:

She does actually host events at her house Ashlawn. 

@throwaway9988 - re reading emails from back then is amazingly funny. Why does everything need to be bolded, italics, so much punctuation?  

I know that. I was wondering why she doesn't let random new members live with her the way others do since she's making so much money off of them. ?

[RFsurvivor]

4 hours ago, DaisyD said:

I know that. I was wondering why she doesn't let random new members live with her the way others do since she's making so much money off of them. ?

Ahhh I misunderstood you! I don’t know of Gwen letting people live with her, but I could be mistaken. 

[AmazonGrace]

Today we open with a Bible quote: if you obey Gwen Gwen will love you.

Spoiler

 

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.” John 15:9-11

Many wayward hearts live to eat instead of eating to live. Food should be nothing more than fuel—we should drop the passion for food and eat simply just the amount to satisfy the hunger.

 

One day she will have to get IV nutrition because as long as you eat there's a chance that you will enhoy it.

Spoiler

The world will argue which comes first, love or obedience, but I say that obedience IS love. You obey the one you love—it is an out-pouring of the heart and something you cannot impede. If you are asking that question—how to fall in love with God—it lets you know that your heart is given to something else.

Didn't we already cover this? I love my kids but I don't obey them.

Spoiler

If your parents told you that you had given your heart to marry someone who was not the right choice and they gave you a superior choice that would bless you the rest of your life, would you not use reason, to start with, to make the transfer? It does start in your mind—you make the choice, and the fruit of the superior choice will melt your heart into love.

Uh, yeah, how should I put this... in a word, no. If my parents were trying to break me up with someone I love and arrange another marriage they could go to hell for all I care.

 

 

[CTRLZero]

Sayeth Gwod:  If your parents told you that you had given your heart to marry someone who was not the right choice and they gave you a superior choice that would bless you the rest of your life, would you not use reason, to start with, to make the transfer? It does start in your mind—you make the choice, and the fruit of the superior choice will melt your heart into love.

Uh, no you just said the parents made the choice.  So...arranged marriage, right?  Did Gwen and non-covenant dad arrange the marriages of Michael and Michelle Elizabeth?  What constitutes a "superior" choice?  (Well, of course I know the answer--Thin Eater, Gwod worshiper, color-coordinated, etc.)

The sort of language she uses reminds me of Vaughn Ohlman's philosophy.  Gwod also looks at bodies, but hopefully waits until they reach the ripe age of 18. 

 

[sajetime]

1 hour ago, CTRLZero said:

 

Uh, no you just said the parents made the choice.  So...arranged marriage, right?  Did Gwen and non-covenant dad arrange the marriages of Michael and Michelle Elizabeth?  What constitutes a "superior" choice?  

In one of the testimonies on SpiritWatch, a former member says that Michelle (Elizabeth) was pressured by Gwen to date her now-husband Brandon Hannah and she wasn’t interested. Gwen told other members to encourage her to date him and she told Elizabeth he’d grow better-looking in time.

Edited June 9, 2019 by sajetime

[SuperNova]

3 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

Food should be nothing more than fuel—we should drop the passion for food and eat simply just the amount to satisfy the hunger.

Then why is Gwen seen at restaurants? Why does she drink diet coke? Diet coke isn't necessary to "fuel" her body and neither is taco salad. If we follow this advice to the letter, Gwen herself is sinning because she clearly enjoys diet coke and junk food. If she truly meant food as fuel only then she should build her cult around bottles of Ensure.

[CTRLZero]

26 minutes ago, sajetime said:

a former member says that Michelle (Elizabeth) was pressured by Gwen to date her now-husband Brandon Hannah and she wasn’t interested

Thanks!  Whether this is the case or not, Gwen's devotional does seem to be addressing some specific instance of parents using veto power to steer their child(ren) in a more gwodly direction.  In Gwen's own personal life, I guess Joe was suddenly the superior choice.  *snicker*  What a screwed up cult.

[Red Hair, Black Dress]

Unless we are to believe that Joe Lara has been attending Remnant Fellowship for 2 years, the RF website people seem to be inserting his photo into wedding albums.

Go to the Remnant weddings website > Albums > 2017 weddings  > pull up Reyes & Voorhis, scroll 2/3 down the photos and there is Joe.

I haven't gone through all the weddings so I don't know if he's in other wedding photos prior to his marriage to Gwod.  Perhaps he was really at the Reyes/ Voohis wedding. 

Or maybe this is part of the RF history revision.  Like erasing the wedding of the RF royalty's son who divorced after a year and (allegedly) came out. 

(http://remnantfellowshipweddings.com/)