Remnant Fellowship’s Practice Questioned In Members’ Murder Trial

The trial for a couple charged with murder in the death of their eight-year-old son continued in Marietta, Georgia on Wednesday. [...]

Joseph and Sonya Smith of Mableton, Georgia are charged beating Josef to death October 2003.

The couple is members of Brentwood, Tennessee-based Remnant Fellowship Church, a church that was created out of leader Gwen Shamblin’s Weigh Down Workshop, a Christian diet program she created in 1986. [...]

A former detective in the case, Steven Gaynor testified the father told him he disciplined the boy by hitting him with glue sticks and said his son had called him, “Legion — soldier of the devil.”

In 2004, the church was raided as part of the investigation into the boy’s death.

Investigators said the child had been locked in a closet and was made to pray to a picture of Jesus on the closet’s ceiling. [...]

The Remnant Fellowship Church began in Brentwood in 1999 by Shamblin and today, has a large sanctuary that seats about 650 people.

According to the church website, there are 130 Remnant Fellowship congregations meeting across the country.

Shamblin believes and teaches her congregation that most of the churches people attend are “counterfeit churches” and that the Remnant Fellowship is the “true church”, billing itself and the 40 acres in Brentwood as the “New Jerusalem.”

Also on the website, Shamblin quotes Old Testament scripture which says the true church must “discipline and confront rebellion to God for fear of losing God” and she criticizes other churches for not confronting the sins of the people who worship there.

Cult experts have looked into the beliefs and practices of Shamblin and the Remnant Fellowship. [...]

This is a summary extract from the full article as it appeared WKRN, Feb 7, 2007
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