Gwen Shamblin: affamée de rédemption

Glad someone made this documentary. In high school my friends and I drove to the church on a dare one night. Here in Tennessee's Tri-State area, religion is a part of almost every household. We are used to "out there" Christian practices and we always joked about Remnant being a cult, but we had no idea it was so crazy. We got a scary/eery feeling that something was off. Maybe it was just the superstition that made us think that, but we couldn't wait to get out of there. It is important for Christians to also stand up to other churches when they are wrong. Christians often feel that we are in this battle of the world hating us together, but it is also up to religious people to hold their own accountable. These are the people that cause others to distrust religious people and Christians.

As Episode 1 of "The Way Down" (2021-22 release; 5 episodes of about 50 min each) opens, it is "May 29, 2021" and a private plan seems to have crashed shortly after takeoff in suburban Nashville, with all 7 people aboard presumed dead. We then go to "Two Years Earlier", where we see a woman giving a deposition in a law suit. Turns out the woman is Gwen Shamblin, a leader (THE leader?) of the Remnants Fellowship Church, a bizarro mix of weight loss evangelical teachings. Yea, you read that right. We then go back to "1992", and are introduced to Gwen's upbringing. At this point we are 10 min into Episode 1.

Couple of comments: this is the latest documentary from director Marina Zenovich ("LANCE", "Robin WIlliams: Come Inside My Mind"). Here she looks at the truly strange thing that is the Remnants Fellowship Church. It is strange because it somehow connects conservative Christian faith to a weight-loss program. It also stands out because the de facto founder and leader is a woman, which is unheard of in evangelical circles. There a bunch of other stuff going on which I will let you explore on your own as you watch this. It all makes for fascinating viewing, frankly from the get-go, and I got completely sucked into and enjoying it. I mean, you can't make this stuff up! I don't know why the series is listed here as "The Way Down: God, Greed and the Cult of Gwen Shamblin", as in the series itself, it's simple billed as "The Way Down". (As a complete aside: the docu-series reveals that at the time of the plane crash, the group was flying to... a Trump MAGA event in Florida. Of course! As the polls consistently show, 75-80% of supposed peaceful, church-going, Jesus-loving, family-friendly Christian conservatives love above all a bullying, serial-lying, narcissistic, racist, Bible-ignorant, anti-democratic dictator-wannabe insurrectionist who would love nothing more than to become "the American Putin". Christian conservatives and the Big Loser. Truly a match made in heaven!)

"The Way Down" premiered on HBO in 2021 with 3 episodes and then 2 more episodes came earlier this year. I'm just now catching up on it on HBO Max, which suggested it to me based on my viewing habits. Great suggestion! If you like documentaries and/or are interested in how one woman built and business empire turned into a church movement, I'd readily suggest you check this out, and draw your own conclusion.

The documentary jumps a little all over the place at times, but as a whole it's done really well. This cult seems like hell and those that run it are experts at exploitation and cruelty; as are most cult leaders. It's sad that media outlets like talk shows, including Larry King, gave this woman any sort of attention. At first I thought she just had some strange obsession with her church community being skinny, but there is so much more to it. She's hurt children and adults alike; nothing about this lifestyle is loving or caring. This documentary is captivating and I'd recommend it.

This certainly takes you for a ride. The first episode was a little slow but overall good, the second episode was more captivating and informative, and the third episode had my heart strings pulled in every direction.

I'll break this review into two pieces: technique and content.

Technique: This is a serviceable three-episode docu-series mixing the usual talking-head interviews and footage with the occasional reenactment. Since watching, I've learned that production began before the death of the main subject. Perhaps that accounts for some of the odd narrative, the way the timeline jumps around. And how the main storylines -- the couple who lost their daughter to the cult, the woman who had a child with one of the cult leaders, and the parents who beat their son to death -- feel disproportionately intermingled.

Content: It was interesting to see some of these escaped members (not to mention the "cult interventionist" who is among the prominent interviewees) practicing their Christian faith. Natasha, who was falsely called a child abuser by her cult-leader baby daddy, can be seen genuflecting in various scenes, even after she left Remnant. The cult interventionist is wearing a cross on the outside of his shirt, presumably to make sure the camera picks it up. Even some of these reviewers on here opine that the Remnant church isn't wrong for being a Christian church, but because it's a "false church."

There seem to be a lot of false churches these days, and the list of religious charlatans grows longer every year. Christians always have some excuse - "well, it's not MY church. That's not MY way of believing." And while Remnant claims the church only follows bible-based teachings, a reviewer here takes umbrage, arguing that Remnant is NOT Bible-based.

And here we have the problem. Worse than the abuses of one church itself is the very essence of modern Christianity in the United States. Any religion that sets people up to fall for things like the "prosperity gospel," and to short change their critical thinking skills for a set of authoritarian principles, is just no good. Period. This is what makes people susceptible to not only terrors like Gwen Shamblin, but Donald J. Trump.

The problem is, religion is interwoven with culture. As the interviewed Southern author notes, the social culture of the south is all the same - there's nobody better than Jesus, and the Bible is literally true. This is a culture that doesn't merely include some religious beliefs, but is utterly entangled with them. This means that if a person wants to practice a religion other than the one infused with their culture, they risk losing everything. Family, friends, and a community they may have known their whole lives. The religion then acts as a social adhesive, and nobody can be free.

They're all trapped in a cult -- and not just one run by a crazy lady with big hair.