Michael G. Long

“Fred Rogers richly deserves a place in the pantheon of pacifists who tried to shake the foundations of society and culture. To the day of his death, he was a radical Christian pacifist—fervently committed to the end of violence and the presence of social justice in its full glory. The time has come for us to pull him out of the shadows so we can celebrate him just as he was—a fierce peacemaker.”
― Michael G. Long, Peaceful Neighbor: Discovering the Countercultural Mister Rogers

“Fred Rogers was not just a compassionate human being; he was a practicing Christian who firmly believed that human compassion has its ultimate source in a God whose love for all of creation never ends. For Rogers, we can and should be compassionate because God is compassionate toward us—always and everywhere. Again, context matters here, and when we place Rogers’s spiritual beliefs in their historical perspective—a time when Billy Graham’s judgmental God was wildly popular—we can clearly see just how prophetic Rogers’s compassion was. But it’s not enough even to say that he was a Christian prophet. Perhaps most of all, Fred Rogers was a Christian peacemaker. The compassion he expressed toward victims of violence and injustice was not for its own sake; it was ultimately for the sake of the peaceable reign of God. Rogers opposed all U.S. wars in his lifetime, as well as various barriers to individual and social peace, because he believed that the Prince of Peace beckons us to establish the peaceful reign of God here on earth—in our hearts, communities, and societies.”
― Michael G. Long, Peaceful Neighbor: Discovering the Countercultural Mister Rogers