Known for its criticism of the Catholic Church and the discriminations it had to endure from the Bavarian government, her movement may well survive its leader.
by Massimo Introvigne
The mayor of Hettstadt confirmed last week the death at age 91 of Gabriele Wittek, the founder of the Universal Life movement, a “new revelation” group well-known in Germany for its campaigns against the Catholic Church and for being a target of the notoriously discriminatory anti-cult initiatives of the Bavarian government. Statistics on the group are a matter of controversy, and estimates vary from less than 10,000 to some 100,000 members worldwide, although the latter figure may be somewhat exaggerated.
Several Christian groups based on “Neuoffenbarungen” (new revelations) have been established in German-speaking Europe. Of these, only Universelles Leben (Universal Life) has had any substantial international expansion. Universal Life has been in existence since 1976. It claims to reconnect with early Christianity, betrayed by the Catholic Church and by other Christian churches, and to be based on the original interpretation of the Ten Commandments given to Moses and Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.
Universal Life’s “Christians of the origins” are convinced that humanity is experiencing a crucial turning point of the times, in which God has spoken again to humankind through the prophetic word. The Spirit of the Christ-God has renewed and deepened Jesus’ teaching, according to what he announced, “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth.” (John 16:12–13).
According to Universal Life, the “Spirit of truth” and the prophecy for our time came through a woman: Gabriele Wittek. Born in 1933 near Augsburg, Germany, into a Catholic family, in adulthood she lived with her husband (whom she later divorced) and daughter in Munich until moving in 1967 to Würzburg.
Wittek reported that the death of her mother in 1970 and a surprising communication with the soul of the deceased woman activated in her a process of internalization and set in motion a new awareness. She withdrew more and more into the silence of a life characterized by prayer, until, on January 6, 1975, the “inner word” burst into her. There followed months of spiritual instruction from Christ and the spiritual being “Brother Emanuel,” whom she perceived in the “inner word.” She thus learned to translate into human words the “language of light” of the spirit. According to the task she claimed had been assigned to her, the “inner word” became a prophetic word, which has been transmitted in countless revelations.
Her “spiritual instructors” asked Gabriele Wittek to publicly proclaim the “inner word,” increasingly distant from her native Catholicism, at first in small groups and then in public gatherings in the major cities of Europe (the first on January 22, 1977, in Nuremberg). Among its followers, Heimholungswerk Jesu Christi (a name sometimes translated as “Work of Repatriation of Jesus Christ”) was born in 1976. In 1984, the group took on the name Universal Life and in 1985 began publication of the monthly magazine “The State of Christ,” circulated in various languages.
In the last years preceding her death, Wittek rarely appeared in public and the movement’s public activities appeared to have become less conspicuous. Yet, the activities continued in several countries, notwithstanding Wittek’s reduced involvement in them.
The teachings of the new divine prophecy contain first and foremost what Wittek called the “Inner Path,” through which all can recognize and overcome their mistakes toward others in daily life, put the Sermon on the Mount into practice, and return to the original unity with God. According to Wittek’s revelations, human souls already existed before their earthly births. Depending on their wrongdoings, they will also have to incarnate several times until they become brighter and able to free themselves from the wheel of rebirth. The earthly existence is conditioned by the law of cause and effect. Everything that humans do to people, animals (Wittek was a well-known animal rights advocate), or nature returns to the individual in the form of misfortune, disease, or suffering unless they repent in time and make reparations for the evil done.
According to Universal Life, many of these teachings were found in the Bible itself, but over the past two thousand years due to errors or malicious alterations of the text by the Catholic Church much has been lost or silenced. These shortcomings or falsifications have now been corrected by the Spirit of Christ-God through Wittek’s prophetic word for our age. She indicated that the Catholic Church, with its rites, dogmas and hierarchies, has nothing to do with the genuine teaching of the Nazarene and is in fact an evil organization, which should be openly denounced. Protestant churches share in the same corruption.
In Universal Life, mainline Catholic and Protestant theology has been deeply revised and corrected. The teachings on eternal damnation or predestination have been declared to be pagan conceptions of a vengeful God, which has nothing in common with the image of a loving God-Father presented by Jesus. Christ’s Redemption gave all his children the possibility to return to the eternal homeland left behind in the course of the Fall. In the beginning, pure spiritual beings wanted to be like God. In this way they moved further and further away from the origin of all beings, which led to the formation of the material world.
To interrupt this negative development, the “first contemplated” son of God, the Christ, was incarnated in the guise of Jesus of Nazareth. He came not to die as a “sacrificial lamb” for reconciliation with God, but to lead humans to change through his example and teaching, and to erect his kingdom of peace. In the face of rejection, Jesus gave his own life, giving from Golgotha to all humans the power of redemption that enables them to follow him, freeing themselves from their sins. In today’s divine revelations given through Gabriele Wittek, Christ announced his spiritual return. The materialistic world is close to collapse, which will be accompanied by great catastrophes, just as it was announced by the Book of Revelation.
Most of Universal Life’s “Christians of the origins” walk the “Inner Path” in their own sphere of life and participate in the movement’s events at several meeting places in Germany and in other European cities and around the world. The themes of the events are also broadcast by numerous radio stations and publications of the group.
As usual, media are speculating that Universal Life may collapse with the death of its founder. Scholars know that the post-charismatic fate of religious movements is much more complicated and difficult to predict.
