8: Conversion | When We All Get to Heaven

Nov 26, 2025

Jim Matulski, a longtime pastor of Metropolitan Community Church in San Francisco, shares his powerful journey after becoming publicly HIV positive in 1995. He reflects on the community's response and the stigma surrounding AIDS. Jim discusses his emotional collapse during a sabbatical, his return to ministry, and the spiritual healing that followed. His candid sermons challenge moral judgment while emphasizing companionship over blame. The conversation underscores how treatment advancements and community support reshaped lives amid the crisis.

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INSIGHT

Reframing AIDS Away From Moral Stigma

AIDS carried moral meaning tied to sex and drugs that magnified stigma beyond ordinary illness.
MCC resisted shame by reshaping meanings to help people live and grieve without judgment.

ANECDOTE

Pulpit Confession Changed The Conversation

In 1992 Jim declared from the pulpit that he was HIV negative and loved someone with AIDS.
He used that honesty to argue serostatus should not define spiritual or moral worth.

ANECDOTE

Sabbatical Turned Grief Into Activism

Jim took a sabbatical to Harvard and studied AIDS academically for the first time.
That study turned his pastoral grief into political engagement upon return.

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In 1995 Rev. Jim Mitulski became HIV positive -- what's known as seroconversion. It was 14 years into the epidemic and people knew what HIV/AIDS was, how you got it, and how you could prevent it. And when Jim got sick, he got very sick. What was it like to become ill so publicly? How would the church and the community respond? And what could Jim possibly preach about on his first Sunday back?

“My Soul Doth Magnify” is from Camille Saint-Saens’ Christmas Oratorio, Op. 12, 1858.

“The 23rd Psalm (Dedicated to My Mother)” is by Bobby McFerrin.

The biblical story of the death of the prophet Elijah is in Second Kings, chapter 2.

For images and links about this episode visit https://www.heavenpodcast.org/episode-8.

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.

Thanks to Ed Wolf and Frank DePelisi for talking us through the issues around HIV status and sero-sorting in the mid-1990s.

And thanks to Bobby McFerrin and Linda Goldstein for use of “The 23rd Psalm (Dedicated to My Mother).” You can see McFerrin conducting his VOCAbuLarieS singers singing the piece here.

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:

National Resource Center on HIV and Aging – resources for older adults living with HIV.

Surviving Voices – an oral history documentary project on how different communities have experienced HIV and AIDS. The most recent focuses on lifelong and long-term HIV survivors.

Let’s Kick Ass – AIDS Survivors Syndrome – support for long-term HIV survivors.

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