Merchant: I have a question for Michael. So we come back and you and I have lunch in five years and this movie starts a conversation, and we start following what Jesus was all about. What's the conversation you and I are going to have in five years about?

Levine: I think, first of all, I think human beings are interesting creatures. They solve zero percent of the problems they don't know they have. And the extent that one acknowledges a problem is a journey that may or may not lead to a resolution. But again, humans solve zero percent of the problems they don't know they have. So we started a conversation tonight and we started it in an environment which self-identifies as 99.5% Christian. I would encourage you in future dialogues to perhaps change that ratio a bit.

Merchant: Come back to Reed College or Lewis and Clark or Yale with me and it'll go 95 to 5 the other way.

Levine: That would be a more fun group.

Merchant [laughing]: Ah, you're a bitter, bitter man, Michael.

Levine: I'm going to hell anyway with these guys. I can say anything.

Merchant [when asked if he had anything to say in conclusion]: For me this journey of making the film ended up being a real personal one. I probably started from a place where—I kind of use the phrase, "the gospel of being right." That was the most important thing for me at one point—that I would feel the need to win the argument at the expense of the relationship, at the expense of the friendship, at the expense of understanding where somebody else was coming from. And this idea of the gospel of being right vs. the gospel of love, which is what I said I followed, and realizing . . . there's a whole lot of miles between trying to be right about everything and superior and sanctimonious and so on. And for me to realize—and embarrassingly so—realize that for me, I can do the gospel of being right all by myself; I didn't need to rely on anybody or anything else. But to try to live up to the standard that Christ represents, I actually do need to rely on him. I'm not very good at being patient when I don't want to be. I'm not very good at being kind to people I don't think deserve it. I'm not very good at loving people I think are unlovable. And it's embarrassing how for many people my first reaction would be, "Oh, wait, they not doing this right."

For me as I studied Christ's words and I've walked this journey through life and I try these things, I find a couple of startling things. Loving-kindness actually does work, and people engage you in a different way when you're looking at their best as opposed to picking at their faults, which is what you're focusing on. Because, frankly, there is no us vs. them. If you're a Christian it's us, as the human race, and Him. These are the two teams. If you're going to make teams then those are the two teams. And I think we do a great disservice and we misinterpret, I think, what Christ was talking about when we go, "Bill doesn't believe this anymore," and "Well, Michael's this," and we start separating teams up. I think we've missed it big time then

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