Biography
Fr. Homer F. Rogers was born in Ft. Worth, Texas in 1915. Shortly after his birth the family moved to Dallas, where he was raised in the Baptist Church, graduating from Baylor University in 1939 with a degree in Sociology and Greek. He discovered the Episcopal Church, graduated from Seabury-Western Theological Seminary and, in 1942 was ordained a priest.
His bishop sent him as rector to St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Denton, Texas, where he stayed until 1953, when he became professor of Pastoral Theology at Nashotah House Seminary in Wisconsin.
From 1956 until his death in 1980 he was rector of St. Francis Episcopal Church in Dallas, Texas. During that time he was on the faculty of the School for Spiritual Directors, the School for Spirituality, and the Anglican School of Theology in the Diocese of Dallas.
Fr. Rogers was married to Dorothy Rae Jones Rogers in 1943, and had six children and twelve grandchildren. He enjoyed spending time in Mexico, raising pigeons and dogs, painting, and good conversation.
The lectures that later became his book The Romance of Orthodoxy arose out of his confirmation classes for adults, which were a lengthy ten-month course of instruction in theology and apologetics. Fr. Rogers began by giving individual instruction, but then organized a class which met one evening a week in the rectory. When this class grew too large, he moved into the parish hall, and added another weekly class. The Romance of Orthodoxy consists of edited transcripts of tapes made of his classes over the last few years of his life.
The book was edited by his daughter, Dr. Mary P. Tuck, who received her Ph.D. in English from North Texas State University. She is married to an Episcopal priest and has four children and two grandchildren.