The Way Down: God, Greed and the Cult of Gwen Shamblin

It's a good series but it could be S'much better with some editing. But it seems that all documentary series' now churn out twice as many episodes as they should. I don't know if it's because they want to stretch these stories out the way the series Dexter took 4 season's worth of material into 9 seasons, or if they just don't want to hire an editor. This is another series that would thrive as 3 episodes. But it IS interesting and well done.

I really enjoyed this and look forward to 2 more episodes (presumably next year?) I'd like to hear a little more about what becomes of some of the key players. Especially Gwen's daughter - if that girl isn't suffering with Anorexia, I'm not sure who is.

I'm a little surprised that the story was unfamiliar to me as I find the topic very interesting. Between the cult storyline and the charlatan religious leader storyline, it was right up my alley.

How individuals can let themselves be taken it by such incredibly obvious hypocrisy is truly beyond me. But I guess they must be looking for something missing in their lives if they're willing to let anyone or anything influence them to this degree. And that's how a cult gets you - it provides what is missing. It fills a void that nothing else has been able to fill.

Of course it's the children either born into it or brought into it by their parents who get my deepest sympathy. Or someone like Delaney who was influenced at a young age and at a particularly vulnerable time in her life. My heart breaks for her parents.

What really fascinated me, however, was reading a couple of the reviews here. There are people who watch the series and then defend this despicable, greedy, evil, charlatan and her co-leaders? It's not a cult and Gwen actually helped people? Really? And how could anyone criticize parents fighting to keep their high school daughter from joining this cult filled with crazies and zealots?

Of course, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. And it probably shouldn't surprise me as it's a big part of the reason this country is in the horrendously frightening position it's in today.

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.

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.

I had stumbled onto this good documentary on HBOMax and had no idea this Church of God likes skinny people existed. Run by a questionable woman using Christianity as her prop to turn out clones of herself and her beliefs, Gwen Shamblin, she operated for decades under this horrific religious guise. Families suffered, relationship suffered in ways I hadn't seen before.

Physical abuse of children. Forced pregnancies. Forced Divorces. Forced weight loss. Etc. All under the name of God, but you'll find that SHE was taking the god moniker for herself, and these folks followed - to a point.

And that is what this documentary puts across effectively.

This documentary also gets across that Gwen Shamblin-Lara and her Church of Heavenly Weight Loss, is also a cautionary tale as it seems so successful as we watch her and those in her orbit run amok with her lavish lifestyle

This tale ends unexpectedly tragic for all the main members and it's a doozy. And their end may make you think whether you're a believer of Christianity or not, that their God doesn't appreciate being mocked.