Who Was Gwen Shamblin Lara? Christian Diet Guru in Plane Crash That Killed 7
Gwen Shamblin Lara, a controversial Christian diet guru, is among seven people who were declared dead after a small plane crashed into Lake Tennessee on Saturday.
According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the Cessna C501 crashed at Percy Priest Lake near Smyrna after flying from a nearby airport at around 11 am.
It was not immediately clear what caused the accident, which is being investigated.
Officials said in a briefing on Saturday evening that all seven people, including boarded Shamblin Lara and her husband, are believed to have died in the crash. The others were identified as William J. Lara, Brandon Hanna, David L. Martin, Jennifer J. Martin, Jessica Walters and Jonathan Walters.
They were all members of the Remnant Fellowship Church, which developed from founder The Shamblin Lara's Christian diet program, The Weight Down Workshop.
Local station NewsChannel5 reported that Lara's daughter, Elizabeth Hannah, sent a message to the remains families, saying the plane had to "go down for a controlled, quick landing" with her mother and husband.
"More information to come, but be in prayer — and be at peace," Hannah, who was not on the plane, reportedly said in the message. "God is in control, and we will never stop moving forward with what God wants with this church."
The station reported that the Cessna C501 was registered at JL&GL Productions LP, a partnership formed by Shamblin Lara and her husband.
In the trailer for the YouTube series "Life with Gwen and Joe", the couple talk about how religion affects every aspect of their lives. This also suggests that Joe Lara was a pilot who regularly flew the pair across the country.
According to the website of the Remnant Fellowship Church, Shamblin Lara "spent every waking moment on behalf of others — and then often prayed in the middle of the night to seek wisdom and guidance from heaven." The website details their philanthropic work, including counseling people and establishing a program to help inmates in many states.
But according to NewsChannel5, the timing of Shamblin Lara's beneficial religious weight loss movement has also been controversial for a long time.
She once claimed that seeing the starvation of Jews in concentration camps in Nazi Germany gave her support for her views that genetics are not a weight loss factor. In the late 1990s he told CNN's Larry King, "How come you were making all these people real skinny in the Holocaust? They ate less food."
She also denied the beneficial nature of the program when asked about her lavish lifestyle, claiming that half the money "goes to the government, the other half to keep it running so that someone else can be helped." . "
According to NewsChannel5, Shamblin Lara also faced charges of leading a cult, with some former relic members saying she was seen as a prophet.
"I don't believe I know what the name of my gift is," she told the station in 2003, when asked if she was a prophet. "So I'll tell you I'm still wrestling with him. I've been told that for years."