New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) casually rejected one of the nation’s founding principles Tuesday morning, telling those gathered for an annual interfaith breakfast that he “cannot separate” his Christian faith from public duty.
“Don’t talk about no separation of church and state. The state is the body, the church is the heart. You take the heart out of the body, the body dies,” said Adams in the main branch of the New York Public Library, where religious leaders from around the city were sitting.
“I cannot separate my beliefs because I am an elected official. When I walk, I walk with God. When I speak, I speak to God. When I implement policies, I make a God-like approach to them – that’s me,” he said.
“I … will always be a child of God, and I make no apologies for being a child of God,” he added.
The comment drew a standing ovation.
At another point in the 25-minute speech, which at times sounded like a sermon, Adams asserted that “when we pray out of the school, the gun enters the school.”
In another, he took a yellow sponge from behind the podium to use as a metaphor for people ingesting bad news in their daily lives. In an apparent reference to the journalism industry concentrated in New York City, Adams said that “too many people are professionals at bringing bad news because there’s something fun about bringing bad news to people.”
As an elected official, Adams is required to swear to uphold the US Constitution, in addition to New York state law, when he takes the oath of office in January 2022.
The Founding Fathers famously rejected the idea of religion in government, firmly establishing a secular framework. Thomas Jefferson coined the phrase “a wall of separation between Church & State” in an 1802 letter that greatly influenced the interpretation of the First Amendment.