Credits & Acknowledgements

When We All Get to Heaven was made possible by a community of contributors, collaborators, advisors, and friends.

Music & Music Supervision:

Music by Tasty Morsels and the musicians, congregants and friends of MCC San Francisco under the musical leadership of Bob Crocker and Jack Hoggatt-St. John. 

Our Project Advisors

Ashon Crawley is a writer, artist and teacher, exploring the intersection of performance, blackness, queerness and spirituality. Associate Professor of Religious Studies and African-American and African Studies at the University of Virginia, he is author of Blackpentecostal Breath: The Aesthetics of Possibility (Fordham University Press) and The Lonely Letters (Duke University Press). He is currently working on a book about black social life; a book about the Hammond B3 organ, the black church, and sexuality; and a short story collection. A MacDowell interdisciplinary arts fellow, and a New City Arts Initiative Fellow, his work has been featured at Second Street Gallery, Welcome Gallery, Bridge Projects and the California African American Museum. All his work is about otherwise possibility.

Kathryn Lofton is Lex Hixon Professor of Religious Studies and American Studies, Professor of History and Divinity, at Yale University. A scholar of religion in American history, her work focuses on how religion organizes capitalism, secularism, institutional and mass culture. Her work connects religious studies with LGBT studies, performance studies, and Black studies to explore the conjunction of race, gender, and sexuality in religion. She is the author of two books, Oprah: The Gospel of an Icon (2011) and Consuming Religion (2017), and one co-edited (with Laurie Maffly-Kipp) collection, Women's Work. An Anthology of African-American Women's Historical Writings(2010). Recent essays have described religion in documentary film, secular aesthetics in musical theater, and the transphobia of freethought.

Kent L. Brintnall is an Associate Professor affiliated with the Religious Studies Department and the Women's & Gender Studies Program at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He is the author of Ecce Homo: The Male-Body-in-Pain as Redemptive Figure and the co-editor of several collections: Negative Ecstasies: Georges Bataille and the Study of Religion; Sexual Disorientations: Queer Temporalities, Affects, Theologies; and Lee Edelman and the Queer Study of Religion. He is currently working on book on queer negativity engaging Leo Bersani, Lee Edelman, Georges Bataille, and the Afro-pessimists. He was, from 1994-2002, an active member of the Metropolitan Community Church in San Francisco and is enormously grateful for so many moments in that rich experience.

Lynn Jordan has been an active member of MCC San Francisco since the church’s denominational chartering in 1970. He was a deacon in MCC San Francisco during the 1980’s and 1990’s doing lay chaplaincy, home, hospice and hospital visitations of congregants with HIV/AIDS. As the church historian, Lynn cataloged and maintained the extensive archives documenting the "AIDS Years“ in MCC San Francisco, which have been made available for research projects and exhibits. That collection has recently been donated to the San Francisco Public Library as part of the MCC San Francisco archive. 

Mark D. Jordan is Niebuhr Research Professor at Harvard’s Divinity School and a visiting professor at Emory University. He has regularly offered courses on Western traditions of soul-shaping, the connections of religion to literature, and the prospects for sexual ethics. His current courses reflect on the projects of queer theology and imagine new forms for ethical writing. Jordan has published a number of books on these topics. The latest, Queer Callings, recalls alternate languages from the last century that sought to describe the loves of bodily spirits.

Kent Brintnall –  University of North Carolina, Charlotte

Ashon Crawley – University of Virginia

Lynn Jordan – Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco

Mark Jordan – Harvard Divinity School

Kathryn Lofton – Yale University

Additional Advising: Allison Behringer, Arwen Nicks, Krissy Clark, Sarah Ventre


The many academic institutions and programs that have supported this project over the years

  • Women’s Studies in Religion Program at Harvard Divinity School

    • Ann Braude and Tracy Wall

  • Congregational Studies Team

    • Especially Bill McKinney, Steve Warner, Nancy Ammerman, and Gerardo Marti

  • American Religious Sounds Project

    •  Amy DeRogatis and Isaac Weiner

  • University of California, Berkeley

    • Beatrice Bain Research Group 

    • Religion, Politics and Globalization Program

    • Institute for the Study of Societal Issues

      • Christine Trost 

    • Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship Program

      • Stefanie Ebeling

  • Worcester State University

    • Worcester State Foundation

    • Department of Sociology & Dean Russ Pottle

  • Sacred Writes

    • Liz Bucar and Megan Goodwin

  • The Religion, Race, and Democracy Lab at the University of Virginia

  • The Symposium on Religion in the American West

    • Clements Center of Southwest Studies, Southern Methodist University

    • Eiteljorg Museum of American Indian and Western Art

    • Brett Hendrickson and Brandi Denison

Archives and archivists

  • San Francisco Public Library

    • Susan Goldstein, Tim Wilson

  • Graduate Theological Union

    • David Stiver

  • Center for LGBTQ and Gender Studies in Religion at the Pacific School of Religion

    • Bernie Schlager

  • GLBTHS

    • Isaac Fellman, John Raines

  • Scott Bloom and Trogoidia Films  

For business advice

  • Ian Fox, Ben Riskin, Amy Westervelt 

For help on the business end

  • FJC: A Foundation of Philanthropic Funds

    • Sophia Trombold

  • Adam Ouderkirk


For Legal help

  • Hosea Baskin

  • Julien Swanson and everyone at Austin Swanson Law Firm


Women’s Audio Mission – for making us sound so darn good!!!


Our many friends and colleagues who listened to and commented on countless episode drafts. 


Everyone at Slate, especially Mia Lobel for making this possible.


The friends we never knew we needed at the Nonfiction Hotlist.


Every single one of the over 100 people we interviewed – those who did and did not end up in the final version. We learned from every one of you. And we’re not done yet! 

  • And in memory of those we interviewed who have since left us

    • Steve Carson, Robert Cromey, Jay Deacon, Jack Hoggatt-St. John, Larry Hughes, August O’Connor,  Steve Pieters, Sandra Robinson, Cees van Aalst, Velle Prewitt.


Everyone in the MCCSF congregation and the MCCSF faith-filled clergy who believed in us and supported this project over its many years. 

  • Rev. Daniel Borysewicz, Rev. Lea Brown,  Rev. Victor Floyd, Rev. William Knight, Rev. Robert Shively, Rev. Annie Steinberg-Behrman.


Other supportive friends for their many supportive acts

  • Tom Bremer, John Cunningham, Jorg Foekele, Brett Krutzsch, Maggie Kulyk, Thomas Kurtz, Brendan McHugh, Danny Nicoletta, Matt and Colette Potts, the Renegade Humanists Collective, Lisa Webster, Seth Freed Wesssler. 


Our friends, our families, and our friend-families

  • Lynne – Michael Allen, Jackie Bass, KC Bitterman, Kent Brintnall, Robin Dennings, Rachel Gross, Tracy Hewat, Christopher Janeway, Rebecca O. Johnson, Catherine Leiser, Gina Lovoi, Brian Kapusta, Patricia Maher, Daniel Martinez, Sarah Quinn, Elaine Reily, Marci Riseman, Evan Sagerman, Shane Snowdon, Almitra Stanley, Marilyn Stern, Susan Stinson, George Triantafillou, Susan Triantafillou, Heather White, the Borelli/Shute crew,  the Giving Gals, the Tuesday night movie group, and the whole, wide, welcoming Haney family. In loving memory of Harold Huntington. 

  • Ariana – Stephanie Worobey, Sasha Galbraith-Lipton, Hope Rehak, Hannah Rehak, Helen Hailes, Steven Lauterwasser, Casper ter Kuile, Lauren Sandler, Lucy Little, Ben Paul, Jeff Emtman

  • Siri — Pegah Rahmanian, Lulian, and Tiam, the Colom Family (Diane, Bill, Trevor, and Evan); the whole Curtis Fam; Sarah Quinn (again), Sookyoung Lee, Victoria Restler, and James Greene, for sharing their networks; The Coop family; Transom Traveling workshop Catalina Island 2017; in memory of Michael Burawoy

  

Research Assistants

  • UC Berkeley 

    • Susannah Chaplain, pan elllington, James Huynh, Aaron Kavanaugh, Jane Kim, Elle Kurata, Alon Mazor, Pauline Miller, Skye Niles, Meghan Reddy, Hazel Roxas, Erica Thomas, Catherine Van Dyke, Ale Vasquez, Jasmine Verrett,, Sara Volkmann, Keith Watts, Justin Yoo

    • Undergraduate Research Apprentice Program at UC Berkeley

  • Harvard Divinity School – Taylor Buehler, Rachel Deitch, Siobhan Kelly 


And every person who answered one of our endless emails seeking advice, counsel, support, ideas –  anything really. The generosity of strangers and friends in such moments overwhelms us.