It was hot as hell outside in the Bronx, but cool and intimate as a church picnic inside the Lovinger Theater. As pastors, city officials, and law enforcement officers puffed down the steep stairs of Lehman College’s Lovinger Theater, Eric Adams leaned forward to reflect on the role of faith in political leadership and the role of faith-groups in building a better city.

The Wednesday afternoon event on July 30^th,  “Faith And The City: A Conversation with Mayor Eric Adams”, was organized by the Mayor’s Office of Faith Based & Community Partnerships. Adams faces several opponents in his bid for re-election on November 4. At present he is running behind in the polls, which favor progressive newcomer Zohran Mamdani. Andrew Cuomo, Curtis Sliwa, and Jim Walden are also running for the office.

Adams reaffirmed the mayor’s public identity as a man of faith as well as his commitment to working with faith-based groups to enact mayoral initiatives if he wins a second term in office.

Adams told A Journey through NYC religion about his early Wednesday morning routine to get  him through the day. He began by thanking God “for being in my life and allowing me to be a servant.”

“I always call out the names of my ancestors, thank them, because though absent from the bodies, present in the spirit. And I just take a moment to reflect to see what am I supposed to know to get through today, what am I supposed to be prepared for? And just prepare myself for it. Because, you know, being a mayor of the city, anything can happen at any given day, and you need to be prepared for what embrace. And so, this morning, for example.”

On Monday, NYPD Officer Didarul Islam, 36, was killed in a mass shooting at a Midtown office building. Since then, the city and the police have been in a state of shock and morning.

Adams continued, “I knew I was going to the precinct to speak to the police officers who were assigned to Officer Islam’s precinct, and so I asked God to give me the words to give them comfort and to show them how we respect them as a profession. And that was my call this morning as I went to the 6:30 roll call.”

“And in my night, we’re giving thanks to God, giving thanks to the ancestors.”

A Muslim, the officer’s funeral took place at Parkchester Jame Masjid the day after we talked with the mayor. Islam was posthumously promoted to Detective First Grade.

Adams observed that the separation of church of state might look good in writing, but personally, it can’t be done.

“You can do that on paper, but you cannot do that in your life.”

He later added, “People are no longer, I hope, ashamed to live quietly as people of faith. For a long time, we wanted to demonize people just because they wanted to embrace their faith. And bringing faith back into government in our city meant a lot to me.”

The city is no longer Sodom-and-Gomorrah-on-the-Hudson or the Secular City, as some used to say, but a postsecular city where the faithful can speak out in government and form alliances with each other and the non-religious for political changes.

Faith partnerships get things done for the people of New York City

Adams pointed out how working with faith leaders has benefited the city. His office made the schools more accommodating to Muslim kids by making halal food available in school cafeterias. He has also highlighted the ability of faith-based groups to catalyze his housing initiative City of Yes for Housing Opportunity, which was passed by the City Council in December of 2024.

City of Yes allows faith-based organizations to add new affordable housing on their properties as part of a larger set of amendments to zoning laws. The mayor’s office projects that the initiative will add 80,000 new housing units to the city market over the next 15 years.

The mayor also suggested that issues like city safety are religious issues, since they impact the everyday functioning of religious congregations.

“If you can’t get to your church, synagogue, mosque, house of worship safely, if you can’t go to school safely, if you can’t live in your home safely, you’re going to live in fear and uncertainty. I think what we’ve delivered around safety has played a major role in the city,” he said.

Adams’s success in getting his initiatives passed has relied in part on his interfaith approach to partnerships.

“This is a country of believers in different areas. It doesn’t mean that one should be put in place and be disrespectful for others,” he said. “I’ve been in masses, synagogues, Buddhist temples, churches, Sikh temples.”

The thing that he believes unites these different communities is “the desire to do something greater than yourself.”

“I don’t think we would have gotten over or survived what we’ve had to deal with in the city if we didn’t have our faith leaders,” he said.

The mayor’s faith journey: not perfection but dedication

Adams’ own story of entering politics is one of religious belief and calling. Adams has never been shy in talking about his rough-and-tumble upbringing in Brownsville, Brooklyn. As a child he struggled with dyslexia and disliked school. After some missteps as a teen, Adams was arrested and had a short stint in juvenile detention. He credits his mother, “a prayer warrior”, and Pastor Herbert Daughtry of The House of the Lord Pentecostal Church with helping him redirect his focus towards a career in law enforcement.

Adams does not see his storied past as a disqualifier for elected office, but rather the reason for it.

“I believe God wanted me to be mayor because my life was so imperfect,” Adams said. “He wanted that young man who was arrested to see that your mayor fell on hard times. He wanted that person with learning disabilities to know that your mayor had a learning disability. He wanted people who are in homeless shelters to know that your mayor was there.”

He summed it up, “I think God wanted people not only in the city but across the globe to know that it’s not perfection, it’s dedication and it’s commitment and [I am] a living example of that.”

Re-election is not the goal, trusting God is

If he does not win reelection, that does not mean that God has forsaken him. Rather, it means that God is telling him, “There’s other things that I need you to do.”

“There’s a sunrise and a sunset. And you have to respect the sunrise and the sunset,” Adams said. “Some folks don’t know when to leave the ring. But at the end of the day, God is going to determine who’s the next man in the city of New York.”

Adam’s attitude of trusting faith elicited choruses of “Amen” and applause from the mixed audience of faith leaders and city officials.

Former New York City Council member Andy King, who represented District 12 in the Bronx from 2012 to 2020, said that Adams’ story of striving to be mayor despite his early life setbacks was evidence that Adams relied on a power greater than himself.

“Belief like that doesn’t come from arrogance,” said King. “It comes from experience.”

King believes that Adams’ stance on the importance of faith in the city will resonate with listeners of his television program King Talk Tuesdays.

Another attendee, John Lopez, who is pastor of Christ Community Church in the Westchester Square neighborhood of the Bronx, appreciated Adams’ track record of working with faith-based communities.

“He’s sending a message to the whole city about the importance of these faith communities,” Lopez said. “I think he’s sensitive to our needs.”

When asked what he hoped Adams would do if he was reelected in the fall, Lopez said church leaders needed to stop asking government officials to do them favors and instead needed to adopt an attitude of helping them.

“It’s [the responsibility of churches] to pray for them,” Lopez said. “That’s the first step. Because at the end of the day, they’re the ones that have to go home at night and deal with all the choices of the situation.”

Lopez concluded, speaking rhetorically to the future mayor, “You keep doing what you’re doing on one level, and I’ll keep doing what I do. My job is to pray for you.”