NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — Eric Adams said on Thursday he believes God played a role in making him the mayor of New York City while defending comments he made denouncing the separation of church and state and endorsing prayer in schools earlier this week.
“I would not be the mayor of the City of New York if it wasn’t that God saw something in me,” said Adams.
The mayor was responding to questions about comments he made at an interfaith clergy breakfast on Tuesday that sparked backlash from first amendment advocates.
“Don't tell me about no separation of church and state. State is the body. Church is the heart. You take the heart out of the body, the body dies,” he said at the event. “When we took prayers out of schools, guns came into schools,” he said at another point in the speech.
When pressed on whether he believes teachers should be leading prayer in schools Thursday, he walked back his statement.
“I didn’t talk about prayers in school,” he said. “There are clear rules about prayers in school. It had nothing to do — I don’t have the power to change that. I just gave you my belief.”
A spokesperson for the mayor’s office said his words were being misconstrued, and that his comments were limited to addressing how his faith guides his decision.
“As the mayor said before an interfaith group comprised of hundreds of representatives from a multitude of religions, you can’t remove the heart from the body,” said the spokesperson. “The policies we make as an administration are rooted in the mayor’s belief in the creator. The mayor personally believes all of our faiths would ensure we are humane to one another.”
On Thursday, Adams said he was being attacked for his faith, instead of his comments opposing the separation of church and state, which is enshrined in the First Amendment.
“Normally I get disturbed when what I do is distorted,” he said. “Nothing gave me more joy than seeing on the front page of the Daily News I was being attacked for protecting my belief in God. To me this is all I live for, to say to God, ‘Thank you, thank you.’ And so if I'm demonized for that, then I'll take that every day.”
This isn’t the first time Adams espoused his belief that god intervened to make him the mayor.
“I never doubted it for one moment,” he said in February 2022. “God told me, ‘Eric, you’re going to be mayor.’”
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