What does love have to do with civic life? In this conversation, Rabbi Michael Holzman sat down with Bishop Tom Berlin, a United Methodist bishop and author, for a wide-ranging dialogue on love, barnacles, and the spiritual foundations of citizenship. Drawing on nearly a decade of friendship, they trace how trust gets built across faith traditions, what the Wesleyan small-group tradition has to teach about civic accountability, and why congregations are the laboratories where people learn to be neighbors. From a 2017 interfaith coalition meeting in Northern Virginia to the well at Samaria, Rabbi Holzman and Bishop Berlin explore what it actually takes to scrape off the barnacles that slow us down as citizens, and why people of faith have a particular stake in getting that work right. This conversation took place during a live faith250 Perspectives Webinar in June 2026.
Show Notes
1:38 — How a decade of friendship began
9:08 — The barnacles metaphor: bias we can't see
15:33 — Jesus, the Samaritans, and two days of hospitality
28:23 — The Wesleyan roots of civic accountability
43:39 — Where to start building cross-tradition friendship
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This podcast was produced by Wesley's Revival, the production ministry of Studio Wesley.
