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<a href="http://www.pluralism.org/resources/slideshow/mcgonigle/">
Multicultural Religious Historical Overview of Rhode Island</a>

(Text from Captions of Slide Show)

The State of Rhode Island is famous for being the historical
birthplace of American religious freedom, and it is also significant
for its unique patterns of religious immigration from colonial times
to the present. In addition to being the first state to institute
religious free exercise and non-establishment, Rhode Island is home
to the first Baptist church, the oldest synagogue, and the first Zen
monastery in the country. This slideshow presents an overview of
Rhode Island's multireligious history, including Native Peoples',
Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Islamic, Buddhist, and Interfaith
communities. Omar Haque </affiliates/student/haque/index.php> has
profiled Rhode Island's Muslim communities

Rhode Island's religious history begins with the Wampanoag and
Narragansett peoples who were its original inhabitants. According to
archaeological evidence, these people have lived in the area of
present-day Rhode Island for some 10,000 years. Over the millennia,
they have maintained their own spiritual beliefs and practices, and
their descendants continue to practice them today.

Roger Williams and the first European settlers of Rhode Island
attempted to establish respectful relationships with its native
peoples, but during King Philip's War the combined forces of other
colonies (Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, and Connecticut) massacred
and "decisively defeated" Rhode Island's natives in a battle known as
the Great Swamp Fight of 1675. This battle took place in a large
swamp in what is now South Kingstown, Rhode Island, and a marker on
the site commemorates that tragic event from which the native peoples
have never fully recovered

After the battle, the Narragansetts held their first annual powwow—a
tradition they continue to the present. At the powwow, the tribal
medicine man performs and leads sacred rites—such as honoring the
earth and all its creatures, displaying the tribe's war bonnet,
smoking the calumet, and performing drumming, songs, and dances—all
elements of Narragansett native spirituality.

The powwow takes place on the grounds of the Narragansett Indian
Church in Charlestown, Rhode Island. This church was established in
the 1740s as part of an effort to convert the native peoples of the
area to Christianity, although its practice is a blend of Native
Peoples' and Christian religious traditions. The church building and
its grounds have been extremely important to the tribe, because it is
the only land that has never left tribal possession and has thus
allowed tribe members to affirm their identity despite the large-
scale European colonization and detribalization that appropriated
most of their land and has even sought to deny their existence

Another important site for the Narragansetts is the Royal Buying
Ground, located in the woods of Charlestown, Rhode Island, which the
State of Rhode Island has dedicated "in recognition of the kindness
and hospitality of this once powerful Nation to the founders of this
State."

The first European to settle in Rhode Island was Roger Williams, who,
in 1636, was banished from Massachusetts Bay Colony for preaching
freedom of conscience and the strict separation of church and state.
Williams' belief in church-state separation was based on his concern
that involvement with "the wilderness of the state" would
contaminate "the garden of the church."
Williams was granted land by the Narragansetts at the head of
Narragansett Bay and established his settlement by a freshwater
spring. He was soon joined by family and friends. In his memoirs,
Williams wrote, "Having a sense of God's merciful providence unto me
in my distress, I called the place Providence. I desired that it
might be a shelter for persons distressed for conscience."

In 1638, Williams started the First Baptist Church in America when he
re-baptized his religious followers, citing his conviction that the
only true baptism was "believers' baptism." Williams, who was once an
Anglican priest and then a Puritan, Separatist, and Baptist minister,
eventually left the church altogether, believing that no
institutionalized church could be free of corruption.

In 1663, Williams was granted a charter for his colony from England's
King Charles I, because:

"in their humble address, they have freely declared, that it is much
on their hearts . . . to hold forth a lively experiment, that a most
flourishing civil state may stand and best be maintained . . . with
full liberty in religious concernments."

That passage is engraved on the front of Rhode Island's State Capitol
Building. The State soon became a haven for other freethinkers
including Anne Hutchinson—the Massachusetts religious dissident who,
with her followers, founded a settlement at Portsmouth, Rhode Island,
in 1638.

In 1639, a number of colonists left Anne Hutchinson's settlement at
Portsmouth and moved onto land that had been cleared and used by
native peoples as a summer hunting and fishing camp for over 5000
years. They named this settlement Newport. Many of these settlers
were members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), an
offense punishable by whipping, expulsion, or the death penalty in
most of the other colonies. In Newport, however, many of the most
prominent citizens were Friends, including Nicholas Easton, who was
elected governor of Rhode Island in 1672. The following year, Rhode
Island passed the first conscientious objector law in America. The
Great Friends Meeting House, which was built in 1699 and still stands
today, was built on property Easton donated. In 1700, half of
Newport's population were Friends. The Friends' numbers declined
after the War for American Independence, but their influence
continued in Rhode Island culture, education, and architecture.

Word about Rhode Island and its "lively experiment" in religious
liberty traveled overseas and enticed Spanish and Portuguese Jews who
immigrated to Newport, Rhode Island, in 1658. At first, these Jews
conducted their religious services and instruction in their homes and
rented spaces. When community members died, however, they purchased
land for a Jewish cemetery.

As Newport's Jewish population increased over the next hundred years
with more Sephardic as well as Ashkenazic immigrants, the community
eventually realized that it would need a synagogue. Thus, in 1759,
they employed the renowned eighteenth-century church architect Peter
Harrison to design one. The synagogue later came to be called the
Touro Synagogue after Rabbi Isaac Touro, the community's spiritual
leader during the time of its construction. The congregation meeting
there called itself Congregation Jeshuat Israel—the "Salvation of
Israel." In 1790, President George Washington visited the synagogue.
He later wrote to them, saying:

"The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud
themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and
liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike
liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no
more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of
one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their
inherent national gifts. For happily the Government of the United
States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no
assistance requires only that they who live under its protection
should demean themselves as good citizens . . . May the children of
the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and
enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall
sit in safety under his own vine and figtree, and there shall be none
to make him afraid. May the father of all mercies scatter light and
not darkness in our paths, and make us all in our several vocations
useful here, and in his own due time and way everlastingly happy."

By the late 1700s the Baptist faith was undergoing a general revival
called the Great Awakening and the First Baptist Church in America
called its first minister, The Reverend James Manning. Manning also
became the first president and professor of the new college in
Providence, then called Rhode Island College, now Brown University,
which was chartered in 1764. Although it was Baptist-affiliated, the
college was atypical in that it provided for an ecumenical
Corporation, including Baptists as well as Presbyterians,
Congregationalists, Anglicans, Quakers, and a number of unallotted
seats. Also, like Rhode Island among states, it was unusual among
colleges in asserting from its inception the right to freedom of
conscience. The College charter states:

Whereas institutions for liberal education are highly beneficial to
society by forming the rising generation to virtue, knowledge, and
useful literature, and thus preserving in the community a succession
of men duly qualified for discharging the offices of life with
usefulness and reputation, . . . it is hereby enacted and declared
that into this liberal and catholic institution shall never be
admitted any religious tests: But, on the contrary, all the members
hereof shall forever enjoy full, free, absolute, and uninterrupted
liberty of conscience: . . . although all religious controversies may
be studied freely, examined, and explained . . . And above all, a
constant regard be paid to, and effectual care taken of, the morals
of the College."

Although Brown became officially nonsectarian in the 1930s, today the
spiritual and moral life of the university continues to be "regarded
and taken care of" by Brown's Office of the Chaplains and Religious
Life. This chaplaincy has become a model among multifaith academic
chaplaincies in serving the increasingly diverse religious population
of this major university. The university's motto is "In Deo Speramus"—
"We Hope in God"—"Hope" being the State motto.

During the early and mid-1800s, federal government construction at
Fort Adams as well as the rise of industrialization and the need for
workers in mines and mills brought substantial numbers of Roman
Catholic Irish immigrants to Rhode Island. In 1828, Fr. Robert
Woodley was sent to Newport and established St. Mary's Parish—the
first Roman Catholic congregation in the State. Various domestic and
international factors caused the Roman Catholic population to ebb and
flow, but it began to increase steadily by and after the founding of
the Diocese of Providence in 1872. Today, Rhode Island contains more
Roman Catholics per capita than any other state.

During the late 1800s, European Americans became increasingly
interested in world religions, both causing and affected by such
events as the Chicago World's Parliament of Religions in 1893. Swami
Akhilananda, a Hindu Vedanta spiritual leader, began preaching in
Providence during the 1920s. Akhilananda originally preached his
message at Providence's Biltmore Hotel, but when he attracted
followers they founded a Vedanta chapel in 1931. (This was ten years
before the founding of the active Ramakrishna Vedanta Society in
Boston, Massachusetts.) The Vedanta society continues to thrive in
Providence today, and it has recently relocated into a beautifully-
renovated historic house which sits across the street from its
original chapel. The original Euro-American laypersons are now joined
by many South Asian American immigrants.

For African Americans, the early decades of the 1900s continued to be
a period of extreme social displacement and economic deprivation.
From the 1930s through the 1960s, preaching by Elijah Muhammad and
later Malcolm X attracted many African Americans to a movement known
as the Nation of Islam (NOI). Although inconsistent on many points
with orthodox Islam, this movement helped many American blacks
develop the self-esteem and economic security denied them by white
racist American society. When Elijah Muhammad died in 1975, his son
Warith Deen Mohammed inherited the movement's leadership and
gradually brought it in line with the global community of orthodox
Islam. During the 1950s, NOI meetings were held in Providence, Rhode
Island, in small businesses and private homes. Later in the 1970s,
this community followed Warith Deen Mohammed's lead and aligned
itself with orthodox Islam. In the 1980s and 90s, the descendants of
that community reorganized as the Muslim American Da'wah Center on
Providence's South Side. This small but active community is publicly
recognized for its engagement in numerous original and interfaith
programs for community improvement, fighting crime, violence, drug
abuse, poverty, and other social ills.

In the mid-to-late 1900s, the legal legacy of racist immigration
exclusion from the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924 (which barred or limited
all new U.S. immigration, especially from outside western Europe)
ended with the passing of the Immigration and Naturalization Act of
1965. A new era of religious immigration then began, especially of
peoples from west, south, and east Asia. One such immigrant was the
Korean Zen Master Seung Sahn who moved to Providence in 1972, and,
with no money and no knowledge of English, worked there as a washing
machine repairperson. After some time he met Brown University's
buddhologist Professor Leo Pruden who invited him to give talks on
Buddhism at Brown University. Seung Sahn soon gathered a number of
student followers, eventually giving rise to the Providence Zen
Center—the first Zen Buddhist monastery in the country—and the Kwan
Um School of Zen—now an international school based in Cumberland,
Rhode Island, with 34 centers in the United States and 57 centers
worldwide.

According to the research of Omar Haque , the post-1965 immigration
also brought to Rhode Island many Muslims from west, south, and
southeast Asia. During the late 1960s and 70s, they met at the
University of Rhode Island's student union to pray, celebrate holy
days, and share community. They would also travel to the more
established Islamic Center of New England located in Quincy,
Massachusetts. By 1975, the Rhode Island community had grown
sufficiently to begin planning for a permanent Islamic center of its
own. In July of 1976, the first meeting of the Islamic Center of
Rhode Island was held at the International House of Rhode Island, and
about eighty members joined. Four months later, with the advice,
financial support, and encouragement of the wider New England Muslim
community, they purchased a funeral home on Providence's South Side
and converted it into a mosque. Also called Masjid al-Karim, the
center is now barely able to contain its expanding congregation. The
community has arranged with local public schools to release Muslim
students for Friday prayers, it maintains a halal market and
chaplaincies at Rhode Island Hospital and the Adult Correctional
Institution, and it hopes someday to open an Islamic school.

Wat Thormikaram of Rhode Island originated in the late 1970s with the
fall of the Khmer Rouge government in Cambodia. Many Cambodians who
had been oppressed under the Khmer Rouge began to flee to refugee
centers in Thailand, the Philippines, and Indonesia, from which they
later moved to third countries such as Australia, Canada, France, and
the United States. A sizable number emigrated to Providence, Rhode
Island, including the monk Venerable Maha Ghosananda, who has become
a celebrated international peace activist.

Maha Ghosananda and his followers initially met in the Cambodian
immigrants' own homes until 1981 when they received nonprofit status
as The New England Buddhist Center. Ghosananda resided with and
served the community from the 1980s until 1995, during which time
they changed its name to the Khmer Buddhist Society of New England
and constructed their first temple, the Wat Thormikaram. This was the
first Cambodian Buddhist temple in the United States. When their
original building burnt down in 1996, the community purchased a
residential home across the street for use as a monastery and built
another structure that they now use as their main temple. By 2003,
some 10-13,000 Cambodians had emigrated to Rhode Island, an estimated
80% of whom affiliate with this temple.

Another example of this "new immigration" is the Watlao Buddhovath in
Smithfield, Rhode Island. Started by a family of Lao immigrants in
1986, when the community grew it purchased a large plot of land with
a house in the suburb of Smithfield. The center now includes an
elaborate temple in a converted garage, offers considerable attention
to its youth in transmitting Lao customs, and plans to construct a
$1.5 million temple and community center by 2005. When it holds its
monthly festivals, the grounds become a sea of cars transporting Laos
from all over New England. At a festival in the summer of 2002, the
temple presented a sizable collection to the New York City Police and
Fire Departments to help with relief for the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
More recent years have witnessed yet another era of immigration—not,
as in the 1800s and 1900s, in the form of industrial laborers, but in
the form of a "brain drain" of professionals (i.e., physicians,
lawyers, businesspersons) contributing to the permanence and
prosperity of America's increasingly diverse religious landscape. A
testimony to the success of these newcomers and their second and
third generation children are the beautiful new religious centers
being constructed to serve their communities. One example is the
Masjid al-Islam ("Islamic Mosque") in North Smithfield, Rhode Island.
Designed by architect Javid Sultan and built through private
donations in 1994, this elegant two-story mosque serves Rhode
Island's expanding Muslim community, including some of the overflow
from Providence's Masjid al-Karim. Currently the largest mosque in
Rhode Island, Masjid al-Islam welcomes Muslims of all denominations
and its members come from all over the world. Some community members
send their children to the full-time Islamic school in Sharon,
Massachusetts. They celebrate religious holidays such as 'Eid al-Fitr
with the larger Muslim community of Rhode Island, and they provide a
variety of youth and adult programs, including religious classes and
social gatherings.

Not only has the arrival and settlement of new religious immigrants
been significant to their communities and to the global and
historical development of their traditions, but their presence in
Rhode Island is also having lasting impacts on the already
established religious groups that greeted them. Interfaith bodies
such as the Rhode Island State Council of Churches, under the
direction of its Executive Minister, The Reverend John Holt, have
begun to broaden the scope of their membership and ministry to
include or collaborate with these new religious communities. The
State Council of Churches, which is considering changing its name
to "Interfaith Rhode Island," looks forward to creating increased
partnerships with its new religious neighbors—such as with Muslim
communities to establish "Peace Zones" in troubled areas of
Providence.

This essay and slideshow present a mere overview of some of the
religious diversity of Rhode Island today. The State is also home to
numerous additional Christian, Jewish, and Muslim, Afro-Caribbean,
Baha'i, Pagan, and other religious communities—all with fascinating
histories worthy of further exploration. But even this introductory
overview demonstrates that the "lively experiment" of Rhode Island
begun by Roger Williams in 1636 continues into the 21st century.

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