Healing without a cure

Episode 5

Rev. Michael England (left), Rev. Ron Russell Coons (center) and Rev. Kittredge Cherry (right). Photo by Audrey Lockwood. Courtesy of the Kittredge Cherry and Audrey Lockwood collection.

When Rev. Ron Russell Coons got diagnosed with AIDS, he thought a lot about what healing meant when death was certain. He pursued it in his strained and broken family relationships and he preached about it from the pulpit. Though he knew, without a doubt, that he would die from AIDS, Ron claimed that he believed in, and had experienced, healing. What does healing mean when everybody knows it can’t mean survival? Maybe healing is one’s biological family and queer kin showing up and reaching for connection across those fractures.

Ron Russell Coons (left) and Chuck Russell Coons (right) in San Francisco. No date. Courtesy of Steve Russell.

Cover of The Church With AIDS: Renewal in the Midst of Crisis, edited by Letty M. Russell (Westminster John Knox, 1990). The book was a response to AIDS, and to their experience at MCC San Francisco, by the delegation from the National Council of Churches that visited the church in March of 1990. It includes writings by Ron Russell Coons.

Hand-drawn image of Ron Russell Coons. Cover of bulletin for Ron Russell Coons’ memorial service. Courtesy of the Kittredge Cherry and Audrey Lockwood collection.

Chuck Russell Coons (left) and Ron Russell Coons (right). No date. Courtesy of Steve Russell.

MCC-SF ministers Ron Russell Coons (left) Kittredge Cherry (center) and Jim MItulski (right) sit on the pulpit under a rainbow flag. Photo by Audrey Lockwood. Courtesy of Kittredge Cherry and Audrey Lockwood collection.

NOTES:

Accounts of the evening the National Council of Churches delegation visited MCC San Francisco, and the work they did with Ron Russell Coons on AIDS, can be found in The Church with AIDS: Renewal in the Midst of Crisis, edited by Letty Russell (Westminster John Knox, 1990).

There are many, many books engaging the question of healing in American Christianity.

Pamela Klassen’s Spirits of Protestantism: Medicine, Healing and Liberal Christainty (University of California, 2011) looks at it from the perspective of 20th century liberal and mainline Christianity.
Kate Bowler’s Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel (Oxford, 2013) explores a very different lineage of American Christian thought about healing.
On Christian efforts to “heal” homosexuality, see Tanya Erzen’s Straight to Jesus: Sexual and Christian Conversions in the Ex-Gay Movement (University of California 2006).

Music:

“When the Roll is Called Up Yonder” is by James Milton Black.

“Give Me Jesus” is a traditional spiritual arrangement by Charles Ivey. The soloist is Maria Barnet.

“It is Well with My Soul,” also known as “When Peace, Like a River,” is by Horatio Spafford.

THANKS

Special thanks to

Ron’s family for speaking with us on and off the record. We know this was a stretch and we appreciate it.
Dr. Joseph Marchal, for helping us understand Ron’s “We Have AIDS” sermon and the biblical text it was based on. It’ll be a great special episode one day.
Steve Russell for sharing his memories of Ron and his brother, Chuck Russell Coons.

Resources:

AIDS Alabama – “Together we can end the HIV epidemic in Alabama.”

Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists – supporting LGBTQ+ Baptists and their families.

TRANSCRIPT:

coming soon