Shamblin’s television appearances typically featured testimonials from her devotees, who claimed that they had achieved weight loss success by replacing their love of food with a love of God. “Needs were being met. People were losing weight permanently and you couldn’t keep it quiet,” Shamblin claimed, but according to News Channel 9 (via Cult Education), the program was not about meeting needs at all, but rather fed on the guilt of those who came to it by equating impulsive eating with the sin of lust, and sought to convince its millions of adherents that their snacking habits were a form of sexual deviancy.

Members of the Church of Christ, the Christian sect from which the Remnant Fellowship was derived, have strongly opposed Shamblin’s claims that they deny the doctrine of the Trinity, per the Christian Courier. Shamblin’s own mangling of Christian teaching led to her weight loss program being pulled from thousands of participating churches, and to her forming the “Remnant Fellowship,” her own church which critics labeled a cult and money-making scheme, per News Channel 9.

In 2004, the Fellowship was thrust into the spotlight when it was revealed that two of its followers had beaten to death an 8-year-old boy who they were trying to discipline in line with the sect’s teachings, having previously “seen results” after locking him in his room for four days with a Bible (per Cult Education), which Shamblin had reportedly described as “a miracle.” They were sentenced to life in prison for murder.