Rodgers was born in St. Louis in 1930 to John H. Rodgers Sr. and Amanda Hancock Rich. Raised Presbyterian, he was confirmed in the Episcopal Church as a teenager. Rodgers graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and served in the U.S. Marine Corps in Okinawa prior to his calling to ordained ministry. After receiving an M.Div. from Virginia Theological Seminary, Rodgers served at an Episcopal parish in Washington, D.C., where he met his future wife, Blanche Kostka. They married in 1959 and had four children. Rodgers then moved to Switzerland, where he earned a Th.D. from the University of Basel while studying under theologian Karl Barth. His early research was on the work of Scottish theologian P. T. Forsyth.
