9: AIDS Energy | When We All Get to Heaven

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4 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 3 December 2025

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 1996 everything changed. With the introduction of antiretroviral medications called the “AIDS cocktail,” people started getting better – some dramatically – and surviving AIDS became a real possibility. In the wake of these changes, MCC found itself taking stock of what they lost to AIDS and using what they learned to address larger social issues– from medical marijuana to homelessness. Sometimes these political stances felt heroic and a way to use that collective energy, and other times it made the church very unpopular with the changing Castro neighborhood. “Freedom is Coming” is by Anders Nyberg. “All Things New” is by Rory Cooney. “Blessed Assurance” is by Franny Crosby. “Gloria (Angels We Have Heard on High” is a traditional Christmas hymn. “The Potter’s House” is by V. Michael McKay. For images and links about this episode visit https://www.heavenpodcast.org/episode-9. Get more Outward with Slate Plus! Join for weekly bonus episodes of Outward and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Outward show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or visit slate.com/outwardplus for access wherever you listen. Production credits: When We All Get to Heaven is produced by Eureka Street Productions. It is co-created by Lynne Gerber, Siri Colom, and Ariana Nedelman. Our story editor is Sayre Quevedo. Our sound designer is David Herman. Our managing producer is Krissy Clark. Tim Dillinger is our consulting producer and Betsy Towner Levine is our fact-checker. We had additional story editing help from Sarah Ventre, Arwen Nicks, Allison Behringer, and Krissy Clark. For a complete list of credits, please visit https://www.heavenpodcast.org/credits. This project received generous support from individual donors, the Henry Luce Foundation (www.hluce.org), the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation, and California Humanities, a non-profit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities (www.CalHum.org). Eureka Street Productions has 501c3 status through our fiscal sponsor FJC: A Foundation of Philanthropic Funds. The music for this episode is from the Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco’s archive. It was performed by MCC-SF’s musicians and members with Bob Crocker and Jack Hoggatt-St.John as music directors. Additional music is by Domestic BGM. Special thanks to Tom Ammiano, Tommi Avicolli-Mecca, Stuart Gaffney, John Lewis, Dr. Jen Reck, Matt Sharp, and Dana Van Gorder for their help with this episode. Great thanks, as always, to the members and clergy of the Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco who made this project possible. Some links to good groups Lyric Center for LGBTQQ+ Youth The Ali Forney Center The Trevor Project’s 2022 report on LGBTQ youth and homelessness Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Christina Kottoruchi, and this is Outward.
0:05.0	Today, we bring you episode 9 of When We All Get to Heaven from Eureka Street Productions.
0:11.0	The archive goes quiet after Jim gets sick, and it starts up again two years later, after the first effective treatment for HIV shifts the course of the epidemic.
0:26.1	This episode explores what it was like for the church when people stopped dying,
0:31.8	and the church found itself with an excess of AIDS energy that it wasn't sure what to do with.
0:49.0	When we all get to heaven after this break. Oh freedom, oh freedom, oh freedom.
0:53.1	When we left off last time, Reverend Jim Metulski just returned to the pulpit at MCC San Francisco for the first time after his AIDS diagnosis.
1:04.2	That was September of 1995.
1:08.2	Two months later, the tapes go silent. There are no recordings for two years.
1:13.6	They pick up again in November of 1997, and this is the first thing on the first tape after that gap.
1:33.2	A new song, rejoice, the dawn is breaking, the earth is waking, its dreams come true, and do you hear the Lord? A whole lot had changed in those two short years.
1:47.0	A whole lot had changed in those two short years.
1:51.0	The church was growing.
1:53.0	Jim and Penny were leading the church together.
1:56.0	Penny Nixon, you might remember, had just started preaching at MCC when Jim got sick.
2:01.3	She was about to become co-pastor.
2:04.7	Next Sunday is Reformation Day, and we'll be doing a sermon,
2:09.0	Penny and I sermon together reflecting on the strengths and weaknesses of our Catholic and Protestant backgrounds.
2:15.6	Penny will talk about her Protestant background.
2:18.3	I'll talk about my Catholic background and the innate superiority of it.
2:21.3	Oh, just.
2:23.3	She'll talk about the poverty of her Protestant upbringing.
	...

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