Gwen Shamblin Lara 16: Remnant after Gwen [Gwen and other RF leaders dead in plane crash]

[hoipolloi]

@AirBeagle -- welcome to FJ.

Your takes on the aviation & aeronautics aspects of the RF crash are somewhat interesting but most if not all of them have been previously discussed in this & an earlier thread. You might take the time to look for yourself. In any case, as you say, we will learn more definitive information -- not takes -- from the NTSB as they proceed with their investigations.

I do have a couple of aviation-related questions since you say you're from TN: does TN require the owners & operators of private aircraft like this one to carry insurance of any kind? If so, is issuing that insurance predicated on the owner/operator having all permits & licenses up to date? TIA for any insight you can provide.

Re: Gothard. What does Bill Gothard have to do with Gwen or this situation? AFAIK, neither she nor RF had any affiliation with ATI/ILBP. Gwen became a Very Bad Person all on her own and the RF cult is her very own creation. Sad to say, this is a wheel that has been reinvented many times in many places, and doubtless will continue to be reinvented as long as there are  gullible & vulnerable people to be preyed upon.

Edited May 31, 2021 by hoipolloi
Clarity

[Bluebirdbluebell]

Well I feel like I learned more from @AirBeagle. 

I was also curious however about the connection between Gwen Shamblin and Bill Gothard. I'm not very familiar with Gwen, but what I've seen she and Gothard had very different approaches.

[J'Lurker]

I think they are just introducing some reasons they lurk on FJ and are passionately anti-fundamentalist/cult with the BG connection.

[mango_fandango]

I thought Gwen’s maiden name was Henley. Someone several threads back found a high school yearbook and she was called Gwen Henley. 
It will definitely be interesting to see where the cult goes from now. Losing just Gwen would have been one thing, but this is the loss of seven high-up figures. 

[JesusPony]

I didn't see this posted -- apologies if it was. Yesterday, Channel 5 in Nashville posted their previous investigation into RF concerning the Josef Smith case on YouTube:

Lot of interesting details and footage, plus Gwen inserting her foot into her mouth multiple times. She doesn't come off well at all. She's quick to throw other members under the bus, including interestingly, David Martin. Is Ted Anger still with the church? He seems more self-aware and media savvy, while Gwen is all "submit to my authoritah!" I believe the reporter is the same one who posted that Twitter thread about the crash yesterday.

[Howl]

1 hour ago, J'Lurker said:

I think they are just introducing some reasons they lurk on FJ and are passionately anti-fundamentalist/cult with the BG connection.

Yes, my impression was that because their family had been so adversely affected by Gothard/IBLP they could see the destructive parallels in the Weigh Down/RF cult. 

 

 

[HereComesTreble]

Whoa. This is awful and shocking. I’m so sorry for the families & friends.

So many friends & families have just been suddenly devastated.  Awful.

I hope this doesn’t come off as flippant—but I’m genuinely wondering about the wedding that took place.  I believe the wedding happened just a couple hours after the crash.  Wouldn’t it be too sad & upsetting to have a wedding in those circumstances?

I know weddings are a ton of work and rescheduling them at the last minute is a logistical mess. But dang—what a sad day for a wedding.

Edited May 31, 2021 by HereComesTreble

[Cam]

I could understand a wedding moving forward. 

Was there possibly some attempt that the pilot intentionally tried to land in the lake like a Captain Sully on the Hudson thing? Or to try to prevent hitting homes and residents in the area?

If you feel compassion towards the victims and their families, why would one of the first things you do be “see what the snark forum has to say.”

I never heard of the woman Gwen before the plane crash. I see she was age 66, Joe was 58. TMZ is running a photo of a young and handsome Joe/Tarzan. What happened with Gwen’s first marriage? Reading up a bit, I see she created controversy by claiming Jesus wasn’t equal to God or something like that. Oh, and her lavish lifestyle. But by now, so many cult leaders live extravagantly (doesn’t Joyce Myers and her kids each live in million dollar plus homes) that followers eyes glaze over it as they reach for their debit card to make an online donation.

 

 

[AirBeagle]

@hoipolloi

[Do I know you? Should you really be standing so close to me? Social distancing and all! <shoo, shoo! Six feet away at least, salty lady!>]

Say, folks, before she goes nighty-night give the Little Lady with the Badly Punctuated and Incorrectly Spelled Moniker the "Whoosh! Right Over Her Head!" Award!! She earned that s--t in spades in this thread! <applause applause applause> Congratulations, One of the Very Elect, you win a cigar for Missing the Point by 2,800 feet! <See what I did there> Smoke it in good health. You so funny!

[By the way: "Dean of Women at Satan U?" <giggle> That's fabulous. I have a Doctorate in Disappointing Your Entire Family Even Unto the Third Generation from there! I'm a late bloomer, so it's only taken me 50 years, but it is cum laude(ly). I've never seen you on campus, but that's probably because I'm over in the School of Apostate-[redacted] Arts and Loud-Mouth Sciences. In fact, I, um, assist the Dean of Men. if you know what I mean and I think you know what I mean. <wink> <nudge> <giggle>

Sigh. Well, l've got some insomnia-provided time, so let's go ahead and get to my reply to this random stranger on the internet what has decided to just gut me wide open, shall we? En-guarde!

First, to quote Hyacinth Bucket (pronounced "Boo-kay"): "Consider me chastened and rebuked." I shall go forth and sin against the More Elect Than Thou no more.

<Oh, but first, I forgot. Stay on the thread topic, stay on the thread topic. <Gets out blue pen to denote staying on topic.> Yes. Let's see. Oh, those poor, POOR Christofascists who were going to Florida to help overthrow democracy but ended up in the lake. And the poor, poor ones in the Brentwood mansions who aren't skipping a beat and are already picking up the albeit-wet-and-dripping cross to wield it against the fat and the ugly and the commanistic libs and the private-jet-less and those lacking Tarzan-like Abs, even as we speak. Dear me, dear me! Such a loss, such a loss. Thoughts, prayers, thoughts, prayers. But not for you, Bill Gothard!! You have nothing to do with this! It's not under your Umbrella of Authority, oh no!!> I'm sad for the human loss here and I'll leave it at that.

[This just in: First jokes now surfacing, er, uh, oops, too soon, being told on the internettubes! (can't take credit for this one, so don't, you know, stone me): "Tarzan in Manhattan is now Tarzan in the Lake!" <boo hiss too soon! booooo!> (Think I read it on Reddit. Not sure. It's all over the place.)]

There. Snark enough for ya? Now back to the twice-asked, not answered question of dear, dear hoipolloi with the sadly constructed screenname, it's okay. I'll be serious. Ahem.

• <Puts on serious hat and gets out red pen to show due seriousness> The answer to your incessantly (okay, twice-) asked question is YES, yes they ARE required to insure the plane, the pilot, the solid gold seats, the Gucci luggage and the five tons of makeup and hair extensions, 50 Bibles written by Gwen, the copy of the Constitution with all the evil parts cut out, and the baseball bat she uses to own the libs and also to pay for any damage caused to ALL the poor people on the ground or the fat fishermen in their boats. If Tarzan was out of compliance on his medical cert, the insurance company might fight any claims. I know I would. But yeah, it's all gotta be insured. If the NTSB determination of probable cause puts blaame on pilot error, then it looks like the insurers would have grounds to say pay for it yourselves, but this is not an area of crash investigation/litigation I'm familiar with, unfortunately. <Takes off serious hat> You know insurance requirements, like you have to keep your car insured and you have to have a driver's license in order to drive? Yeah, that stuff.

One last super-serious thing, Hoi Polloi: Don't wield your privilege here to swat down us noobs and namby-pamby emotional cripples because we fail to meet your lofty expectations of being worthy to post here, nor open my own snark bucket any further. It overflows and I'm not in the mood. Here's why:

• As I wrote in the TL:DR (did you read it?) there were three things that intersected here which prompted me to write. I wanted to just be helpful and wrote a long, thoughtful post synthesizing from several sources including this thread, to answer questions I had seen that went unaddressed. It's unfortunate you're too dense to understand, but I don't know you and 'splainin' myself to someone who will willfully refuse to understand isn't my problem. It's yours. If I need to correct or delete something as events unfold I will. But I will do itas new information comes to me, not because you make me.
• What I've read of your input on this thread these two days hasn't been just snarky and "oh my, those poor people"; you've been gate-keeping, tone-policing, and making ad hominem attacks on vulnerable people while willfully refusing to just understand their point, snarkily express your disagreement and leave it at that. Well dish it out, honey, I can take it. But just remember: What you send out into the world can come right back in your face. You sound like a very miserable, disagreeable woman. Is that true? Because that's the image you projected to others around you, especially to those of us who were getting their first exposure to you. If that was your intention, then congratulations. Job well done. If not, well. I don't know how to help you figure it out. Be kind. Be best. Love wins. Whatever. Figure it out.
• See, I just got through teaching kids from three-year-olds to fourth graders both virtually and in person for over a year; I've had kids lose parents to Covid; seen other teachers lose houses to tornadoes and students lose houses to floods; worn masks 9-12 hours a day taking them off for only 20 minutes to eat for a year even as ignorant parents have attacked us and our principal for enforcing mask regulations we cannot and would not change; paid out of my own pocket for food, treats, and supplies for kids; got cancer and had a malignant lesion surgically removed from my foot and went back to teaching in less than three days because we are short-handed; had a very angry austistic, violent kid stomp on the same foot as it was healing, which set me back a month in healing; watched one of our bassets convulse and die in my arms the day after I found out I had cancer; and etc., etc., etc. Everyone has had something. There is a major need to make connections in meaningful, gentle, accepting ways, while being snarky about it and having fun, poking holes in pompous windbags.

You may not think any of this is relevant to this thread, but you would be very, very wrong. In lieu of actually getting to know me, which you seem disinclined to do and which is fine by me, you'll just have to take my word for it on this. My love of teaching, crash investigation and flying, my experience of the last year AND Bill frickin' Gothard are EXTREMELY relevate to the why, what, and long detail of my post. Keep your gate-keeping, tone=policing ad hominems out of my face. We're full up on crazy here at our house. Thanks ever so much.

And finally, you go get some sleep, Sister Mom, and we'll snark swords in the morning when you're not quite so willfully obtuse and your bellicosity levels have gone down. Take a Nytol with a glass of warm milk and a shot of vodka. Trust me, it helps. I know.

As for me, my rubber duckie requires my presence in the bath and then I must sleep amongst our bassets, if there's any space left on the bed, for a large number of hours.

BTW: Have you guessed I'm a total gay boy yet? No matter. Just noting it so you'd understand something about me. There are a million stories here in Music City. Probably the same where you live.

Ta-ta! Don't do any tone policing I wouldn't do! Snark ya in the morning! <wink>

<eyeroll>

Good night everyone else. If something airplanish hits the news tomorrow, I'll edit my first post or try to sneak under the gate and, in the proper tone, give you as useful information as I can get and explain. Thank you for your welcomes and understanding. I'm not always like this. <Wonder why I was tonighty? <wink> <grin> Good night!

Edited May 31, 2021 by HerNameIsBuffy
redacted term for hate speech

[formergothardite]

38 minutes ago, Cam said:

Reading up a bit, I see she created controversy by claiming Jesus wasn’t equal to God or something like that. Oh, and her lavish lifestyle. But by now, so many cult leaders live extravagantly

Sadly, that is the part of her beliefs that get the most hand wringing from other church leaders, but as we have spent years discussing, her others teachings are horrific. Her church is built upon not eating. She even recommends only eating a tiny bit of food every 36 hours. She teaches this to small children. Gwen had an obsession with the idea that children didn't eat a lot. She once bragged about how her daughter Elizabeth when she was small would ask for food and Gwen would deny her. 

Her teachings on child discipline are less public but one of the cult members beat their child and locked them in a small box and Gwen supported the parents. 

Gwen was a very bad person who ripped families apart and led to who knows how many eating disorders. 

[fransalley]

I do skim the Drudge Report to see what’s going on in the world; he posted a link about ‘Christian diet guru’ and I wondered if it was Gwen. 

This is tragic. Am I understanding correctly that Elizabeth lost her mother *and* her husband in this crash? 

[mango_fandango]

Ooh the story made it to BBC News. That hair.

[MamaJunebug]

@AirBeagle,

Thank you for your introductory post. Very enlightening & educational. I read it all the way through - and probably will refer to it again. Good to have all that info in one place. 
 

 

 

Edited May 31, 2021 by MamaJunebug

[RTR]

@mango_fandango

You’re right, Gwen’s maiden name was Henley.  I attended church with her younger brother, Walt Henley, in the late 90s in Nashville (a run of the mill Church of Christ, NOT RF.  IIRC, Gwen and David were still attending Otter Creek C of C back then and hadn’t yet started RF). 

Edited May 31, 2021 by RTR

[MamaJunebug]

44 minutes ago, mango_fandango said:

Ooh the story made it to BBC News. That hair.

“His dietician wife” gave me an ironic vibe. If only that were the sum of it.

Then, “who founded a weight-loss church.”  Oh, my. Leave it to the BBC to present a whole new angle - where the death of the TV actor leads, and the tragedy of a cult is ... dismissed? ... in under a dozen words. 
 

I say this not to criticize the BBC but to reflect on how “news” gets defined in different places, cultures, corporations. 
 

That is all.

Still heartsick for the orphaned children. And for all the children whose lives are mangled by cults. 

Edited May 31, 2021 by MamaJunebug

[mango_fandango]

@MamaJunebug yeah, I’m guessing it’s probably because more people will have heard of Joe Lara than Gwen Shamblin, at least in an international context. If people decided to google her name they’d find a lot of info. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

6 hours ago, mango_fandango said:

I thought Gwen’s maiden name was Henley. Someone several threads back found a high school yearbook and she was called Gwen Henley. 
It will definitely be interesting to see where the cult goes from now. Losing just Gwen would have been one thing, but this is the loss of seven high-up figures. 

Yes, I believe it is Henley. And I believe that was the name of the baby boy Elizabeth lost before Charles Granthem was born. 

[formergothardite]

6 hours ago, JesusPony said:

I didn't see this posted -- apologies if it was. Yesterday, Channel 5 in Nashville posted their previous investigation into RF concerning the Josef Smith case on YouTube:

Lot of interesting details and footage, plus Gwen inserting her foot into her mouth multiple times. She doesn't come off well at all. She's quick to throw other members under the bus, including interestingly, David Martin. Is Ted Anger still with the church? He seems more self-aware and media savvy, while Gwen is all "submit to my authoritah!" I believe the reporter is the same one who posted that Twitter thread about the crash yesterday.

Thank you for sharing. I had to stop watching because it is so disturbing listening to these people brag about beating a two year old. I do really like that the reporter quoted Gwen's words of support back at her when she tried to claim she wouldn't support hitting a two year old over and over and over. 

Gwen was a monster. That woman was evil. 

[MamaJunebug]

24 minutes ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

Yes, I believe it is Henley. And I believe that was the name of the baby boy Elizabeth lost before Charles Granthem was born. 

I am sorry to, but I have to ask. How old was Elizabeth’s first son when he died? 

[JermajestyDuggar]

18 minutes ago, MamaJunebug said:

I am sorry to, but I have to ask. How old was Elizabeth’s first son when he died? 

Unfortunately I can’t remember. The only reason I know is because an ex RF person shared the info on FJ. I guess no one ever talks about it in RF. It could have possibly been SIDS but I’m not sure. 

[Cam]

2 hours ago, formergothardite said:

Sadly, that is the part of her beliefs that get the most hand wringing from other church leaders, but as we have spent years discussing, her others teachings are horrific. Her church is built upon not eating. She even recommends only eating a tiny bit of food every 36 hours. She teaches this to small children. Gwen had an obsession with the idea that children didn't eat a lot. She once bragged about how her daughter Elizabeth when she was small would ask for food and Gwen would deny her. 

Her teachings on child discipline are less public but one of the cult members beat their child and locked them in a small box and Gwen supported the parents. 

Gwen was a very bad person who ripped families apart and led to who knows how many eating disorders. 

Wow. I had no idea the extent of her madness. Not sure if there’s an exposé book about the RF but I may have to read up a bit more. 

I can remember when I became “born again” back in the 80s. (no longer profess to that). There were some edicts from peers like do not listen to secular music. Well, I grew up on the Beatles, Temptations, AM Pop radio, etc., so that was a hard one. My music fast lasted about eight years and then for whatever reason I went back to listening to whatever I wanted.

That was one of the few extreme changes I made for religion. In hindsight, it doesn’t sound all that extreme compared to the likes of Gwen followers. I just don’t get people falling that far down in to the rabbit hole and staying there. Not listening to their own instincts. 

[MamaJunebug]

7 hours ago, JesusPony said:

I didn't see this posted -- apologies if it was. Yesterday, Channel 5 in Nashville posted their previous investigation into RF concerning the Josef Smith case on YouTube:

Lot of interesting details and footage, plus Gwen inserting her foot into her mouth multiple times. She doesn't come off well at all. She's quick to throw other members under the bus, including interestingly, David Martin. Is Ted Anger still with the church? He seems more self-aware and media savvy, while Gwen is all "submit to my authoritah!" I believe the reporter is the same one who posted that Twitter thread about the crash yesterday.

Is the Martin fellow here the same one who died in the plane crash?

Or do I need a second cup of coffee?

Apilogies in advance for not just doing my research. Watching this interview I am beyond bummed out ... but not sorry I watched.  The truth must out! 

Edited May 31, 2021 by MamaJunebug

[Sarcastically spinster]

8 hours ago, AirBeagle said:

I have high empathy for everyone. Yeah, RiP and all that. But. I also have no problem being contrarian and negative: Where are the accolades and sorrow for all the lives these folks, and Gothard, et al, have destroyed? Divorces, deaths, irrevocable splits in families, coercion, egotism, massive wealth accumulation, etc.?

This is what I've been thinking about the last day or so, too (though not so much the Gothard connection - I also am unaware of any direct connection?)  Like, yeah, I'm sorry for all those who lost family, especially the kids.  However horrible they may have been they were still loved by people who knew them, and those people are grieving a very real loss, and I feel for them in that grief.  

But in a bigger picture, I am glad that these people are no longer able to keep tearing lives apart.  I wish it hadn't taken their deaths, and that it could have come through them changing instead.  But the end result is one that I can't grieve over at all.  Gwen and her inner circle have done so much destruction to so many.  I don't regret that they can't do any further damage.  And I hope that this ends up robbing her teaching of the power it still has over so many.  

I grieve for the kids.  But I hope this also leads to them being raised by people who don't instill disordered eating, brainwashing, and cult compliance.  I know this is devastating for them.  But I hope this leads to a transition to a healthier family environment for them - and if it does, they may actually end up better off in the long run for this happening than if they had been raises fully indoctrinated in the cult.  I hope so.  

tl;dr - I wouldn't ever hope for someone to lose a family member.  I'd always rather see the damage done end in other ways.  But there's so much about this that I can't be anything but glad/hopeful for.  

[JesusPony]

It's a common name, but I think the David Martin who had the "showdown" with a 2-year-old is the same David Martin from the crash.

Also, I should have included a content warning for that video because of the child abuse the church members discuss flippantly.

[SilverBeach]

1 hour ago, MamaJunebug said:

@AirBeagle,

Thank you for your introductory post. Very enlightening & educational. I read it all the way through - and probably will refer to it again. Good to have all that info in one place. 
 

 

 

Yes, it was a very good post.