Quakertown Online

ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION

 

Mr. Rogers's Neighborhood:

Religious Dissent in New London, 1674-1721

 

By

 

Susan Chongmi Kim

Doctor of Philosophy in History

University of California Los Angeles, 2006

 

 

This dissertation examines the activities of John Rogers and his followers, the Rogerenes, from the Rogerene naissance in 1677 until John Rogers's death in 1721. Throughout this period, civil and ecclesiastical leaders in New London considered the Rogerenes the most disruptive dissenters in their midst. The nearly five-decade struggle between the Rogerenes and the Standing Order has left a lasing portrayal of John Rogers as a fanatical sectarian leader. Little has been written about Rogers beyond his boisterous demonstrations, and he and his followers are generally characterized as the radical dissenters whom the Puritans loved to hate. A more accurate depiction of Rogers is in order through an in-depth examination of his actions and thoughts. Rogers's writings reveal that he was more of an intellectual than a demonstrator.

 

In the thickest of battles, Rogers picked up the pen rather than the sword and used his words to challenge the Congregational order. John Rogers covered a broad range of issues in his extensive writings, which could be categorized loosely as commentaries on religious and political affairs in New London. Rogers's core belief in individualism was woven into these two spheres of colonial life, and his writings clearly proposed the tempering of church and state powers to accommodate individual convictions.

 

John Rogers holds a unique position in religious history as the founder of the first indigenous sect in the colonies. Unlike the sectarian leaders who preceded him, Rogers was born and bred in the New World and acquired foundational Rogerene tenets through his personal construal of various New England faiths. Rogers never traveled beyond the colonial borders but was well situated to redefine how European faiths would translate across the Atlantic. Sectarians from England and Ireland often met with Rogers for months at a time. Quakers and Sabbatarians from the Old World influenced Rogers's thoughts on doctrine and society, but he fine-tuned these principles to better suit life across the Atlantic. Rogers's life reflects transatlantic exchanges of religious ideals spanning his defection from Congregationalism in1674 until his death in 1721.

 

 


Return to QUAKERTOWN Online