About the Conference

"Rolling The Stone Away: Generations of Love and Justice" was a three-day conference running from October 31-November 2, 2017 in St. Louis, Missouri, that honored elders, saints and prophets from all generations, and marked the ground-breaking achievements, relentless commitments, and often painful sacrifices these leaders have made in religious organizations over the past five decades. The next generations were in the house and shined a light on what comes next.

The conference included a variety of different types of sessions: some were plenaries covering different historical periods, and how conference participants recalled LGBTQ activism in the church before and after Stonewall. Others were rituals that celebrated queer history and LGBTQ community in a Christian context. Still others were academic panels on queer theology and LGBTQ religious history, or opportunities for story-sharing and conversation. 

The goals of this conference

1. To bring together a large cross-section of early leaders of LGBT Christian leaders to tell their stories and preserve their valuable histories.
2. To engage in dialogue with present-day LGBT Christian leaders to illumine how the past informs future directions.
3. To raise the public visibility of LGBT Christian movements, their profound impact upon social and religious institutions and the challenges they still face.