Podcast Summary: "When We All Get to Heaven | Setting the Table"

Podcast: Slow Burn x When We All Get to Heaven
Released: October 15, 2025
Producer: Slate Podcasts / Eureka Street Productions
Host/Narrator: Lynn Gerber (with archival voices of Jim Mitulski and others)
Theme: The Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco and its response to the AIDS crisis

Brief Overview

This powerful first episode of "When We All Get to Heaven," a new narrative series spun off from Slow Burn, immerses listeners in the world of the Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco (MCC) during the darkest years of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and early 1990s. The episode explores how this pioneering pro-gay church offered spiritual solace, radical inclusion, and practical support to a community beset by loss, stigma, and social rejection. Through archival tapes, first-person narration, and music, the episode sets the stage for a deep exploration of faith, grief, resilience, and community.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Memory, Loss, and Grief Amid the Epidemic

• Opening Reflection (00:54–01:56):
  Jim Mitulski, MCC minister, describes the acute pain of forgetting those lost—a Madonna song triggers a fleeting but fragile memory of a dear friend.
  “There have been so many people that we’ve lost, that I’ve lost. I really, for a moment, almost couldn’t remember his name. And he really was very dear to me. And I wanted to cry out, I remember you.” —Jim Mitulski (00:54)
• Communal Naming Ritual (02:32):
  Mitulski invites the congregation to say aloud the names of the lost, forging a powerful communal remembrance that doubles as a ritual of survival and healing. “Say their names so that they become part of this communion.” —Jim Mitulski (02:32)

2. Physical and Social Realities of Worship (03:00–03:59)

• Vivid descriptions of the worshippers—mostly young, mostly sick, some too weak to sit or stand—reinforce the extraordinary stakes and intimacy of these gatherings, underlining the fragility and defiance that defined AIDS-era San Francisco.

3. Exclusion from and Reinvention of Traditional Christianity (03:59–07:14)

• The episode powerfully explains that most traditional churches rejected and condemned gay men, especially during the AIDS crisis, framing their suffering as deserved and denying them both spiritual and practical support.
• MCC’s response was to create “another kind of church”—unconditionally welcoming, centering queer lives and grief, recasting homosexuality as a blessing, not a curse.

4. Archiving Grief: The MCC Tapes (07:14–10:59)

• Technical volunteer Keith built a taping program to ensure that the home-bound or hospitalized could share in the life of the church.
• Nearly forgotten, these tapes (1,200+ cassettes, 1987–2003) were rediscovered by congregant Steve—creating an unprecedented audio archive of queer, Christian, communal response to AIDS.

5. Community, Humor, and Subversive Joy (11:00–13:19)

• Unexpected moments of laughter and irreverent humor emerge from the archival recordings: “I remember one time at dinner, there was a very handsome male couple sitting… and we told them that they had to break up and go get ugly lovers.” —Jim Mitulski (11:24)
• The community’s wit, inside jokes, and dark humor sit side by side with sorrow and fear.

6. Audacity of Faith and Musical Feminism (14:08–17:58)

• Hymns Rewritten: MCC rewrote classic Christian hymns to reflect its own theology—feminist, queer, and inclusive.
  Notable moment: Listeners are invited to notice the lyric change from “Sing his mercy and his grace” to “Sing God’s mercy and thy grace.” (15:10–16:20)
• The “utter queerness and utter Christianness” creates a uniquely defiant spiritual culture.

7. The Theology of Remembrance and Radical Inclusion (18:08–22:07)

• “Our healing comes tonight in our remembering and in our claiming that promise of love that is stronger than death and of love that never ends.” —Jim Mitulski (18:16)
• Communion at MCC (unlike most Christian churches) is radically open: belief in God or Christianity is not required to participate. “You don’t have to believe in Christianity, in God, or in anything at all to be welcomed to the table.” —Lynn Gerber paraphrasing the invitation (21:03)
• The table is set for “everyone”—past, present, believer, skeptic, ally—reflecting a deeply inclusive ethos.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Memory and Loss:
  “I wanted to cry out, I remember you.” —Jim Mitulski (00:54)
• On Public Grief:
  “I wish we could level all these pretty Victorians. And if this was a meadow and there were a thousand corpses rotting in the sun, then people would look at it and they would understand what was happening to us here.” —Jim Mitulski (12:23)
• On Compassionate Defiance:
  “We have AIDS as a community, and God loves us. And to the enemies who are attacking us, we say to you, we’re not closing up shop. We’re just starting a revival here…” —Jim Mitulski (13:19)
• On Hymnal Activism:
  “They were serious enough about their own blend of queerness, feminism, and orthodoxy to rewrite all of their beloved hymns to reflect what they truly believed.” —Lynn Gerber (16:20)
• On Open Communion:
  “Everyone is welcome to come forward tonight to share in this communion. Communion with God. However it is that you understand God, communion with people past and present, and to come…” —Jim Mitulski (21:23)

Important Segment Timestamps

• 00:54 – Jim Mitulski’s reflection on memory and loss
• 02:32 – Invitation to name the dead
• 03:00 – Description of the sanctuary and physical toll of AIDS
• 07:14 – Origins of the MCC audio cassette ministry
• 10:59 – First-person accounts; humor and inside jokes emerge
• 12:23 – Striking metaphor for public grief
• 13:19 – Defiant affirmation of community survival and faith
• 15:10 – Reimagining hymns with inclusive, feminist language
• 18:16 – Communion as ritual healing and remembrance
• 21:03 – The radical openness of MCC’s communion practice

Final Thoughts & Relevance

The episode, guided by Lynn Gerber’s thoughtful narration and enriched by moving archival sound, invites all listeners—regardless of background—into a sanctuary of memory and hope. The stories and rituals of MCC speak to a universal human need for belonging, remembrance, and resilience in crisis, with special poignancy for those historically excluded from church and community. Evocative, unsparing, yet suffused with humor and warmth, “When We All Get to Heaven” sets a high bar for narrative podcasting about the intersection of faith, queerness, and history.

Further Information

For more episodes, listen via Slate’s Outward podcast or visit heavenpodcast.org.