The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers

by Maxwell King

There were hard divisions between the very conservative United Presbyterian Church and the more liberal and progressive practitioners of the faith, and their battles were so hard-fought that they finally caused the seminary to appoint a special commission to release a set of recommendations to heal the divisions within the faculty and the institution.8 Rogers was always on the liberal side of this equation, and he later became a parishioner and sometime preacher at Pittsburgh’s Sixth Presbyterian Church, a famous bastion of the progressive. The Sixth Church emphasized inclusion, and it was known in part for welcoming gay and lesbian parishioners, a position that was wholeheartedly supported by Joanne and Fred Rogers: “Fred was very happy in our [Sixth] Presbyterian Church because there are no exclusions,” recalls Joanne. “There’s no exclusivity. If there had been a church called ‘Reconciliation,’ I think he would have joined it.” Joanne emphasizes Fred’s belief that religious faith should bring all sorts of people together, not pull them apart.