Remnant Fellowship 23: Elizabeth's Phoning It & Michael Did a Runner. Literally.

[JermajestyDuggar]

13 minutes ago, WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo? said:

I've been catching up on RF. A lot happened in the last few years!

I saw a fairly recent picture of Elizabeth Hannah earlier in this thread, but I didn't see this one:

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I wouldn't have believed that is her if I hadn't found it on the RF Leadership section.

I realize that appearance isn't really the most important thing about an abusive cult, but it caught my eye. I hope RF fades away, and that more of its members escape. 

I think it’s pretty obvious she’s gotten into Botox and fillers. I’m not against those things. But Gwen’s cult put way too much emphasis on a person’s appearance and you can see Elizabeth took those beliefs to heart.

[hoipolloi]

From Michael's interviews so far, it seems as though Gwen was spiraling out of control, especially after marrying Joe Lara. 

Even if the plane crash hadn't happened, you wonder how long RF would have held together.

 

[JermajestyDuggar]

7 minutes ago, hoipolloi said:

From Michael's interviews so far, it seems as though Gwen was spiraling out of control, especially after marrying Joe Lara. 

Even if the plane crash hadn't happened, you wonder how long RF would have held together.

 

I think Gwen would have divorced Joe and things would have gotten messy. 

[Red Hair, Black Dress]

If Elizabeth is using Botox and fillers, I think it's because she's so so thin her cheeks would be sunken in and her lips would be nearly non existent without fillers. Botox smooths out all the creases from the extreme thinness.

I know someone who is as thin as Elizabeth. The person I know is anorexic and absolutely freaks out if her weight goes above 90 lbs.  Without fillers and Botox she looks much older than her age.

As the extreme thinness has obliterated her bust, a few years ago she had breast implants. Which look completely fake on the extremely thin body -- like softballs bolted to her chest. The woman I know is now so proud of her boobs she wears very tight sweaters to show them off.  Her legs in contrast are toothpicks, skin stretched across bone; the kneecaps look enormous.  

 

[JermajestyDuggar]

1 hour ago, Red Hair, Black Dress said:

If Elizabeth is using Botox and fillers, I think it's because she's so so thin her cheeks would be sunken in and her lips would be nearly non existent without fillers. Botox smooths out all the creases from the extreme thinness.

I know someone who is as thin as Elizabeth. The person I know is anorexic and absolutely freaks out if her weight goes above 90 lbs.  Without fillers and Botox she looks much older than her age.

As the extreme thinness has obliterated her bust, a few years ago she had breast implants. Which look completely fake on the extremely thin body -- like softballs bolted to her chest. The woman I know is now so proud of her boobs she wears very tight sweaters to show them off.  Her legs in contrast are toothpicks, skin stretched across bone; the kneecaps look enormous.  

 

I’m pretty sure Gwen had breast implants. 

[Queen Of Hearts]

Part 4 is up.  

https://www.newschannel5.com/news/newschannel-5-investigates/secrets-of-remnant-fellowship-im-going-to-say-this-and-the-people-of-remnant-are-not-going-to-like-this

I think this part was the best so far.  RF is giving off major Scientology vibes.  

I feel sorry for Michael.  Imagine having to cope with having Gwen as your mother.

[CTRLZero]

Interesting to read through the member notes from 2017.  The monitoring was pretty thorough.  Creepy.  

[SerenitybyJan]

Y'all. 

I mean I knew things were locked down there but this is pretty incredible. The level of detail of control through this "system" is pretty scary. I'm wondering if someone who's been there can share more. 

I hope he's getting some good therapy. And his kids. 

[RFsurvivor]

I don’t remember exactly when it was rolled out, but there was a common email (something like guidance@remnantfellowship.org) that was supposed to be used for requests for guidance from leadership. There was a form you submitted that discussed your problem/what you sought guidance on as well. This was presented as a method so that leadership can make sure all members are getting guidance and if something happens your email isn’t lost in just one leaders inbox. 
 

I also know of leaders providing screenshots of text convos years after conversations occurred and including conversations they weren’t involved in. 

Oh, I also was asked by a leader at one point why I wasn’t watching services as consistently as I had previously…which means someone was keeping track

[Mrs Ms]

Sorry, haven’t had a chance to watch/read (depending on what it will let me do outside the US) so I don’t know if we know how many parts is this going to be all up?

[JermajestyDuggar]

It’s crazy to me that Gwen actually wanted to micromanage hundreds of cult members. That sounds like my own personal hell. 

[Red Hair, Black Dress]

All that information collecting on the RF members to keep them in line sounds an awfully lot like organized blackmail.

Control over people's lives and keep the tithing coming in.  Yep, blackmail.

I'll bet cash money that the RF Royalty who had access to the files would just laugh and laugh and laugh among themselves about the info they had on the members.

 

[hoipolloi]

13 minutes ago, Red Hair, Black Dress said:

All that information collecting on the RF members to keep them in line sounds an awfully lot like organized blackmail.

Control over people's lives and keep the tithing coming in.  Yep, blackmail.

This was & is the control structure in Sovereign Grace Ministries and its successor churches, now rebranded as Sovereign Grace.

Adult members have to belong to small groups in which you are expected to be honest & forthcoming about everything in your life. Of course, participation was just used for ammo in the event someone wanted to leave or tried to stand up to the cult. 

 

[Tibby]

Like most everything at Remnant, I think it started out differently- probably as a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system that every business has had in one form or another for hundreds of years, whether it be index cards, Rolodex, or electronic. WeighDown was a business before it was a church so it makes perfect sense that they had such a system. It is what shows you what you purchased in the past, and any customer service issues that you had. After it became a church, people were encouraged to go to a leader with their personal problems. It was probably thought of as a natural extension of the use of the CRM system to keep track of the problems so that you could remember what you talked about last time. Similar to notes a therapist would keep. But then, over time, it turned and went way overboard, just like everything else at Remnant.

 

 

 

[AmazonGrace]

12 hours ago, Mrs Ms said:

Sorry, haven’t had a chance to watch/read (depending on what it will let me do outside the US) so I don’t know if we know how many parts is this going to be all up?

i am outside the US and was able to watch the videos

there's going to be part five I think

[bffyly]

2 hours ago, Tibby said:

Like most everything at Remnant, I think it started out differently- probably as a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system that every business has had in one form or another for hundreds of years, whether it be index cards, Rolodex, or electronic. WeighDown was a business before it was a church so it makes perfect sense that they had such a system. It is what shows you what you purchased in the past, and any customer service issues that you had. After it became a church, people were encouraged to go to a leader with their personal problems. It was probably thought of as a natural extension of the use of the CRM system to keep track of the problems so that you could remember what you talked about last time. Similar to notes a therapist would keep. But then, over time, it turned and went way overboard, just like everything else at Remnant.

 

 

 

This makes so much sense to me. Especially since the system would already be familiar to leadership, since they mostly came through WD in the beginning, I think - either as staff or as success stories. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

I can understand his not wanting to talk about Elizabeth. His mom and dad are both dead and he’s divorced. Elizabeth and his kids are the only close family members he has left. And I’m sure he knows how hard she’s had it. 

[FrumperedCat]

Their monitoring system gives me Mean Girls vibes taken to an extreme. Burn book anyone? Reckon they wear pink on Wednesdays? 

[MobMarried]

On 2/11/2024 at 1:43 PM, LittleBlackDress said:

 

 

just as crazy Michael's now ex wife is in Remnant and in leadership 

Not so crazy when we remember Erin has been in at least the second rung of the inner circle from the beginning.

E, E, J, and K all lived together in a house fronted by Gwen in the early Nashville days of WD while they all attended Lipscomb. RF took off, became their future, and none finished.

To add, Erin was closer to the fountainhead than Michael for at least the past 16 or 18 years, though--at first--she didn't enjoy as much credibility with G.

Sidenote: That Channel 5 screenshot from Michael from the files they kept on each other is almost definitely about K.

On 2/11/2024 at 1:43 PM, LittleBlackDress said:

 

 

just as crazy Michael's now ex wife is in Remnant and in leadership 

 

[Tibby]

G=Gwen

E=Elizabeth, Erin

J=?

K=?

[AmazonGrace]

This headline is like some soap opera right before all the main actors are poisoned in an episode that is later revealed to be a dream.

Quote

'Prophet' pastor Gwen Shamblin was ADULTERESS whose Tarzan actor lover Joe Lara threatened to shoot her son dead with sniper's rifle before both died in private jet smash

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13079779/prophet-pastor-gwen-shamblin-cheater-joe-lara.html

https://www.newschannel5.com/news/newschannel-5-investigates/this-is-what-we-are-going-to-take-you-out-with-gwen-shamblins-son-describes-threat-with-snipers-bullet

 

Quote

 

After leaving her longtime husband, Michael said she and Lara 'never had one month of peace' from the day they married until the day the plane went down en route to Palm Beach International Airport. 

'Every month was custody fights with his ex, Natasha. Or there was constant issues, constant trouble,' he said, adding that he perceived Lara as having a negative impact on his mother's lifestyle. 

'She started experimenting with marijuana and, I heard from people, even harder drugs,' he said. 'It was constant intoxication on trips and things like that.' 

 

would we have heard of it if Joe was under the influence during the crash?

[hoipolloi]

1 hour ago, AmazonGrace said:

would we have heard of it if Joe was under the influence during the crash?

From the NTSB? Yes. Here is a link to the NTSB Docket and it includes a toxicology report on Lara - no drugs were detected.

ETA: from the final overall report (CW for description of postmortem data):

Spoiler

Quote

Low levels of ethanol were detected in the pilot’s muscle tissue and the pilot-rated passenger’s muscle and kidney tissue; n-butanol was also detected in the pilot’s muscle tissue. Given the length of time to recover the airplane occupants from the water and the circumstances of this accident, it is reasonable that some or all of the identified ethanol in the pilot and the pilot-rated passenger were from sources other than ingestion. Thus, the identified ethanol in the pilot and the pilot-rated passenger did not contribute to this accident.

 

 

Edited February 17 by hoipolloi

[Tibby]

On 2/17/2024 at 12:11 AM, JermajestyDuggar said:

I can understand his not wanting to talk about Elizabeth. His mom and dad are both dead and he’s divorced. Elizabeth and his kids are the only close family members he has left. And I’m sure he knows how hard she’s had it. 

You can’t have it both ways. His mom ran a cult that hurts people. Now his sister runs a cult that hurts people. Has she changed anything? Gotten rid of the “system”? Reached out to former members to apologize? The only thing that she could do to redeem herself somewhat is to walk away. Today. End the nonsense for everyone. Then get some help so that maybe she can repair damage to her children.

[JermajestyDuggar]

2 hours ago, Tibby said:

You can’t have it both ways. His mom ran a cult that hurts people. Now his sister runs a cult that hurts people. Has she changed anything? Gotten rid of the “system”? Reached out to former members to apologize? The only thing that she could do to redeem herself somewhat is to walk away. Today. End the nonsense for everyone. Then get some help so that maybe she can repair damage to her children.

I totally agree. But I think his love and empathy for his sister is outweighing that. 

[throwaway9988]

My parents and my sibling are still in Remnant. I criticize my parents all the time because they joined the Remnant cult as adults, and they willingly chose to perpetrate the cult’s control and abuses onto me and my sibling.  However, I feel a bit more charitable towards my sibling; although my sibling is now an adult who is (unfortunately) now raising their own children within Remnant, my sibling has been a controlled and brainwashed victim of Remnant since the time they were 12 years old, and I view that as somewhat extenuating. 
 

That’s why I find it understandable if Michael, as the individual who suffered alongside Elizabeth through childhood and early adulthood under Gwen Shamblin, wants to focus his immediate criticisms on Gwen. With that being said, Elizabeth is now the cult leader, and she is playing a key role in perpetuating the cult’s control and abuses onto others. Elizabeth certainly does not deserve to go through the rest of her life playing the victim card to avoid fair criticisms, but it’s understandable to me if maybe a bit less of those fair criticisms end up coming from Michael himself.

Edited February 18 by throwaway9988