New York Mayor: Lack of faith is biggest challenge for NYC

New York Politics

Mayor Adams wants NYC to be a ‘place of God,’ calls on faith leaders and NYers to pitch in

By Michael Gartland

New York Daily News • Mar 16, 2023 at 2:54 pm

 

Mayor Adams called on New Yorkers to transform the city into “a place of God” Thursday — the latest in a series of faith-based remarks that have defied conventions set by his City Hall predecessors.

Adams, who was speaking at a faith-based summit on mental health, posed much of his speech in the form of questions that boiled down to one focal point: How does one reshape New York City into a place that exudes an aura of faith and God?

“How do we take a city that is the center of the power of America and turn it into a city, when you enter it, everyone sees faith and sees God?” the mayor said during Thursday’s confab, held at Columbia University’s Teachers College. “Our challenge is not economics. Our challenge is not finance. Our challenge is faith. People have lost their faith.”

Mayor Eric Adams speaks at the Greater Allen A.ME. Cathedral of New York on Sunday, January 9, 2022. (Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

Adams’ latest comments on the subject of God and belief come two weeks after he stirred up controversy when he declared he doesn’t believe in the separation of church and state, a perspective he clarified days later by saying that “government should not interfere with religion, and religion should not interfere with government.”

Since making those statements, he’s taken more than one question from reporters on the topic, has floated the idea of encouraging spiritual exchanges between houses of worship, and on Wednesday, during an appearance at a gun violence summit hosted by national faith leaders, he called on clerics to be part of a “major recruitment campaign” to get young people to become police officers.

“We should be part of the rallying call of having good, God-fearing young men and women play this awesome role of public safety in our city,” he said at that event.

Front page of the New York Daily News for March 1, 2023: In speech to faith leaders, Adams dismisses need to separate church and state. Mayor Adams, speaking Tuesday (above), made comments that could be at odds with the established constitutional provisions separating religion and government. (New York Daily News)

The mayor’s most recent predecessors — former Mayors Bill de Blasio and Michael Bloomberg — were typically more restrained when speaking on faith and rarely detailed their own personal experiences with religion.

Adams, who was raised in the Church of God in Christ, a Pentecostal denomination, has offered a different approach and drawn criticism in the process. Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said earlier this month that his remarks continued “to raise concerns that he doesn’t respect the separation of church and state.”

Thursday’s comments on faith in Manhattan’s Morningside Heights were broad in scope — and more personal than some of his previous statements.

Adams described his childhood and how his mother, who died weeks before his inauguration, would emphasize the importance of people feeling and seeing God when they walked into their home.

“Mommy used to say to the six of us, she says, ‘When people walk into this house, do they feel God? Do they see God? Do they feel the energy of God?’” he said. “So here’s my question. Our home is New York City. When people walk into this city, when they get off the bus, when the asylum seekers come in, when they enter the city for the first time at JFK or Amtrak — do they feel God?”

New York City Mayor Eric Adams host the annual Interfaith Breakfast at the New York Public Library on Tuesday, February 28, 2023. (Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

Adams attempted to then answer his own question with another rhetorical flourish pointed at the asylum seeker crisis he’s struggled to address since last year and the city’s continuing homelessness dilemma.

“If this was a home of God, we would not be asking the question, what are we going to do with our asylum seekers,” he said. “If this was a home of God, we would not be asking the question of what are we doing with the young men and women who are growing up in homeless shelters that have not even seen someone come in and minister to them.”

Adams has repeatedly called on the federal government to pony up more cash to house and provide other services for the more than 40,000 migrants who’ve come to the city since last year seeking asylum. And earlier this week, he approved a form of ministry, albeit secular, for people living in homeless shelters in the form of a law that now requires the city to provide mental health services to women and children living in family homeless shelters.

But other, broader issues, he suggested on Thursday, remain unresolved.

He said he’s fearful of what’s happening in the city and in the country as a whole — and pointed to the easy access children have to cannabis products, cosmetic surgery and phone-based apps like TikTok as bellwethers which show the country is moving in the wrong direction.

Adams, who’s railed against social media repeatedly, pointed to China’s approach to TikTok as one that’s superior to the one now being taken in the United States.

“They don’t allow the TikTok that our children are looking at. They don’t allow it in China. They only have education TikTok. Our babies are waking up every day in the morning, on their way to school, stopping into stores and bodegas and buying gummy bears and Skittles laced with cannabis and sitting inside the classroom,” he said. “We are seeing the erosion of the foundation of our future.”

LINK:  https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/new-york-elections-government/ny-mayor-adams-wants-nyc-to-be-place-of-god-20230316-fwn4bzllubeprpfwplzaqoptym-story.html