On Saturday, a small jet carrying seven people bound for Palm Beach, Florida crashed into a Tennessee lake. Among the seven people now presumed dead is Gwen Shamblin Lara, a Brentwood, Tennessee native and controversial diet guru and church leader.
Lara founded the Remnant Fellowship Church in 1999. The church, which now reportedly has more than 1,500 members in 150 congregations worldwide, was founded on “faith-based” weight loss, with its website listing food ahead of drugs, depression, self focus, money, anger, selfishness, envy, and jealousy as the idols that need to be “laid down,” according to USA Today. Her Weigh Down Workshop, based on “helping people turn away from the love of food and toward a love of God,” often led to criticism. Speaking with CNN’s Larry King, Lara said she found support for her ideas particularly her belief that genetics do not play a role in weight loss, by looking at the starvation of Jews in Nazi concentration camps. She told King, “How in the Holocaust did you have all these people getting down real skinny? They ate less food.”
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Lara also often faced accusations that she was leading a cult. Local outlet News Channel 5 reports several lawsuits were brought forth alleging Lara demanded employees believe what she believed, and former converts have come forward to claim Lara was viewed as a prophet. In a recording obtained by the news outlet, Lara told her congregation, “I have not been put in this position because I’m going to put up with you all’s disobedience. If I hear of it, then I will correct it. If I have to come to you, then you’re really in trouble.”
The Remnant Fellowship Church also found itself in controversy following the 2003 child abuse death of a Remnant child. The death led to questions regarding Lara’s teachings, and in one recording, the founder could be heard praising a mother for locking her child up for an extended period of time, stating, “That’s a miracle. You’ve got a child that’s going from just bizarre down to in-control. So I praise God.”
Lara, along with her husband, Tarzan in Manhattan actor Joe Lara, whom she married in 2018, were among seven people aboard a Cessna 501 when it crashed into Percy Priest Lake in Smyrna shortly after takeoff Saturday. The five others aboard the flight were Lara’s son-in-law, Brandon Hannah, and married couples Jennifer and David Martin, and Jessica and Jonathan Walters. All are presumed dead. Search and recovery efforts continued throughout the weekend and into Monday.
