When We All Get To Heaven

A queer church faces AIDS in 1980s and ’90s San Francisco.

About the Show

When We All Get to Heaven is a 10-episode series that tells the story of one of the first gay-positive churches, the Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco, and how it faced the personal, social, and political trials of the AIDS epidemic, including the deaths of hundreds of its members.


Produced and co-created by Eureka Street Productions, a collective of Lynne Gerber, Siri Colom, and Ariana Nedelman.

Host

  • Lynne Gerber is the host and co-creator of When We All Get to Heaven. She's an independent scholar who writes about religious responses to HIV/AIDS in 1980s and 90s San Francisco. She's held research and teaching positions at Harvard Divinity School and the University of California at Berkeley.

A Postlude for ‘When We All Get to Heaven’

Reflecting on a series coming to a close and an epidemic still unfolding.

10: AIDS Isn’t Over

We remember, along with the people of MCC San Francisco. Because AIDS still isn’t over.

9: AIDS Energy

Treatment changes everything. Church included.

8: Conversion

“We just kept trying to find meaning, meaning, meaning.”

7: Dress Rehearsals

A church romance blossoms between a hula dancer and a lumbersexual.

Interlude: Tired of Dying | When We All Get to Heaven

Ten years into the AIDS crisis, the country starts to notice. A little bit.

6: Attacked

When a lesbian minister is physically assaulted, the church is galvanized. And when they find out who did it, there are even fewer answers.

Bonus | Unpacking When We All Get To Heaven “Attacked”

Bryan and Christina reflect on the sixth episode.

5: Healing Without a Cure

A minister with AIDS grapples with what “healing” means in the face of certain death.

4: Friends in the Fire

“To know us is to love us.”

Bonus | Unpacking When We All Get To Heaven “Friends in the Fire”

Bryan and Christina reflect on When We All Get To Heaven’s fourth episode.

3: “A Church with AIDS”

The gay church becomes the church with AIDS.

2: A New Gospel for Gay Sinners

A Pentecostal preacher starts a gay church in his living room. A Navy veteran starts one in a gay bar. And a lesbian athlete finds one when she needs one.

1: Setting The Table

A queer church tries to remember all they lost to AIDS. We do too.