But some praise Eric Adams’ remarks at an interfaith breakfast.
By Bobby Ross Jr. | Religion Unplugged
Big Apple, big controversy: “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.”
New York City Mayor Eric Adams said that at an interfaith breakfast this week — remarks called “unhinged and dangerous” by a rabbi quoted by the New York Times’ Dana Rubinstein.
More from the New York Times:
He went on to suggest that his path to the mayoralty was divinely ordained, saying that when he implements policies, he does so in a “godlike approach.”
At another point, Mr. Adams seemed to suggest that it was a mistake for the Supreme Court to ban mandated prayer in public schools, as it did in 1962. “When we took prayers out of schools, guns came into schools,” he said.
The phrase “separation of church and state” is not in the Constitution, but the First Amendment’s statement that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” has been widely interpreted to dictate such a separation.
‘God bless Mayor Adams’: But not everyone criticized the comments.
In fact, Adams won “a new group of fans: Orthodox Jews and evangelical Christians, whose leaders lauded the liberal Democrat,” according to the Washington Times’ Mark A. Kellner.
“I believe much of the chaos we’re seeing in our country today results from trying to be good without God, and such a thing is totally impossible,” Robert Jeffress, senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, told Kellner.
This column appears in the online magazine Religion Unplugged.
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