The Influences of John Wesley and Thomas Merton on the Spiritual Formation Movement Through the Contribution of M. Robert Mulholland, Jr.

Abstract

John Wesley (1703–91) and Thomas Merton (1915–68) are two of the most influential voices in Christianity since the Protestant Reformation, representing the disparate traditions of Wesley’s pietistic evangelicalism and Merton’s contemplative monasticism. This research contributes to the present void of comparative study between Wesley and Merton by utilizing dialectic inquiry in the fields of history, spirituality, and theology with Wesleyan pietistic evangelicalism as a thesis and Mertonian contemplative monasticism as an antithesis. The research argues that the spiritual formation movement that originated within North American evangelicalism in the second half of the twentieth century represents a synthesis of Wesleyan and Mertonian influences most clearly evident in the foundational contribution to the movement by New Testament scholar M. Robert Mulholland Jr. (1936–2015). Through this inquiry and its primary reliance on the writings of Wesley, Merton, and Mulholland, this project seeks to contribute to the current and future understanding and practice of Christian spiritual formation.