Labadism

The Labadists were a 17th-century Protestant religious community movement founded by Jean de Labadie (1610–1674), a French pietist. The movement derived its name from that of its founder.

Jean de Labadie (1610–1674) came from an area near Bordeaux. In his early life he was a Roman Catholic and a Jesuit. However, at that time, the Jesuits were wary of overt spiritual manifestations, so Labadie, who himself experienced frequent visions and inner enlightenment, found himself dissatisfied and left the order in 1639.

He had fleeting links with the Oratoire, then Jansenism (on occasions staying with the solitaries of Port-Royal, who received him at the time but later sought to dissociate themselves from him). He was a parish priest and evangelist in the southern French dioceses of Toulouse and Bazas, preaching social righteousness, new birth, and separation from worldliness. His promotion of inner piety and personal spiritual experiences brought opposition and threats from the religious establishment.

Eventually, frustrated with Roman Catholicism, Labadie became a Calvinist at Montauban in 1650. In that city and then in the principality of Orange he championed the rights of the Protestant minority in the face of increasing legislation against them by Louis XIV (which would culminate in 1685 with the Edict of Fontainebleau). Labadie then moved to Geneva, where he was hailed as ‘a second Calvin’. Here he began to doubt the lasting validity of established Christianity. He held house groups for Bible-study and fellowship, for which he was censured.

In 1666 Labadie and several disciples moved to the Netherlands, to the French-speaking Walloon congregation of Middelburg. Here his pattern continued: seeking to promote active church renewal through practical discipleship, study of the Bible, house meetings, and much else that was novel for the Reformed Church at that time. Here too he made contact with leading figures of the spiritual and reformatory circles of the day, such as Jan Amos Comenius, and Antoinette Bourignon.

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