Transcript: Mayor Adams Hosts And Delivers Remarks At Reception For Faith Leaders

October 11, 2023

Pastor Gilford Monrose, Faith Advisor, Office of the Mayor: All right. Good evening to everyone. Good evening, again, to everyone. Good evening, again, to everyone. As faith leaders of New York City, you have to be strong in your response. So, good evening to everyone.

I hope today finds you as well as you can be. And before I continue with my remarks, I would like to do two things: first, I would like to have a moment of silence for the victims of the terrorist attack in Israel to recall the mind to the global conflicts around the world and the lives lost to these conflicts and wars.

And then the second thing, I would like to join in a collective prayer for all humanity to be able to work towards sustainable peace. And so, our office — the Office of Faith Based and Community Partnerships that the Mayor signed as an executive order a year and a half ago is here to help and to assist with the vigorous dialogue as we face some long days ahead of us.

So, first, we'd like to have a moment of silence; and then, I'm going to ask all of you to pray collectively for all of the conflicts of our city, what we're facing today, and for the people who are in this room to carry the burden that God has given you to lead your people in your congregations, in your temples, your mosques, your synagogues — wherever you may serve — of the task of leading in time of difficulties.

Let's have the silence, and then let's have the prayer.

Let's have a moment of collective prayer together in your tradition.

Thank you so much for your prayers. On behalf of Mayor Adams and our administration and the Office of Faith and Community Partnerships who is partnering tonight, I'm really honored to serve as the faith adviser to the Mayor and also the executive director of the Office of Faith and Community Partnership. And I really want to take this opportunity to extend to you a heartfelt gratitude of all of the work that you have done.

When we think of the difficulties that we are facing in New York City and across the globe, day in and day out, you know, the mayor of New York City has the burden of the people on his shoulder, but I think as faith leaders, you have the burden of God. And I think that tonight we are pausing in this difficult time in the world to be able to come together in a room of all different backgrounds and faiths to really work on this experiment of how do we work together, live together in New York City in spite of what is happening in the world.

And that's important to do tonight, and so we want to be an avenue and a vehicle to be able to have those tough discussions in the weeks ahead. It's going to be a long road for us as we even look at the influx of migrants who we are serving in this city, the most that is being done by any mayor in the United States of America, to be able to give them the dignity of service. And the work that you are doing, who someone today told me that they are housing migrants in their temples without any support from anyone, out of the goodness of your heart.

So, I want to say, number one, we want to thank you so much for the work that you're going to do. And if it is appropriate, would you give yourself a round of applause for the work that you are doing in New York City.

So,this year we're really looking forward to connect and collaborate with your agents, with your churches, your temples, synagogues, mosques, places of worship, [inaudible], schools, hospitals, senior centers, local missions, food pantries, soup kitchens, colleges, universities, homeless shelters, parachurch ministries, all faith institutions, foundations, museums, health centers and other nonprofit organizations to assist in a massive operation to assure that we are going to support needy New Yorkers during this holiday season that is coming up.

We are looking for you to help us with serving dinners to every shelter, domestic shelter, unhoused New Yorker shelters, migrant shelters. To donate school supplies to children in all of our shelters. To give a gift to every child under the age of 12 in our communities, for winter coats and for socks and for warm clothes.

And we're also looking for houses of worship to again open up your doors to apply to our faith-based program and our day program to be able to house migrants. And again, like I said to you before, what we're doing in New York City is unprecedented in serving our communities using our faith based program.

So, as I mentioned to you before, your dedication, your compassion, your spiritual leadership has been a source of inspiration to all of us as we strive to make a positive impact in our communities. And today we are here because our theme is being United in New York City — not saying that we are going to not recognize the difficulty of the conversation that we are going to have.

We understand it: wars in Ukraine and issues and situations across the country that divide us on religious grounds. But we are confident that you are going to show the world and we are going to show the world that we can truly work together in the midst of chaos. So, thank you so much for being here today. If you look over to your left or to your right, to the front or to the back, these are the individuals and faith leaders who are walking with us in this administration, and we really wanted to bring you here tonight to thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

I'm going to now call up the chief advisor, Chaplain Ingrid Lewis‑Martin; and then after she speaks, then we'll have the Mayor of New York City. Thank you again, and God bless you.

Ingrid Lewis‑Martin, Chief Advisor to the Mayor: Good evening. I believe in God. I believe in God. We are here to tell you thank you. So many people in this room have been with the Mayor and me from inception. When we first started in 2006, you were there. Some of you are new, but you have been there with us when we had trying times. They come after the Mayor on a regular basis, they come after me on a regular basis, but we have people in faith and who believe in God. They believe in Allah. They believe in Buddha. They believe in Hashem. They believe in all types of denominations, and you pray for us, and we thank you.

When we need you to step up for us, you don't turn away from us, you stand with us, and we thank you. Today's a hard day, it's a difficult day, as Pastor Monrose said. We know that there are a lot of things that are going on in our society that people of faith who believe in God, who believe in the Creator would never do. We know that. We see what has happened to our brothers and sisters in Israel.

But we are God fearing people, and we believe in unity and we believe in love. I have my two brothers here with me. I'm going to ask my two brothers to join me on the stage. When I came to speak tonight, I didn't plan on saying this, but when I saw a Moe, Muhammad, and then I saw John, [John Shammy], I was told to bring them on the stage because I do refer to them as my brothers.

I have my Muslim brother to my right, my Jewish brother to my left, and they are Muhammad like the Koran, Joe like… Joseph like the Bible.

Moe has a pantry that he serves the community food, all kinds of things, clothing. His pantry is a few doors away from the home of [John Shammy's.] They didn't know each other before tonight. I was talking to the two of them and they connected. [John Shammy] is in a situation where he can help Moe and provide him with goods, and they made that bond tonight.

So we see. We see that no matter what happens across the globe, New York understands that we are one people and that we must work together for the greater and the common good. God is about one thing, and that is love. God is about peace. God is about harmony. And that is what we promote in our city, and that is what our mayor insists upon.

And we thank you for being with us. We thank you when the naysayers come after us. We thank you for praying for us. There are a group of ministers who've been praying for the mayor, praying for me, the commissioner, all of our administration consistently, and it was the brainchild of my Sister in Christ, [Minister Sharonnie] and Bishop Chantel Wright. And I thank you for doing that for us.

God is about peace and love. We love you. We thank you. Just as you were there for us, I can assure you that our administration will be there for you. And I would be remiss...I want to just announce that we have three elected officials in the house with us. We have Assemblymember Edward Gibbs, Assemblymember Jennifer Rajkumar and Assemblymember David Weprin. They're behind the stage, but I would like you to please give them a round of applause.

And I get the honor to do what I love to do. Anybody who knows me knows that it's my honor for me to present to you a gentleman that I work tirelessly for and I still to this day. And it's done with love and from the heart. And because of you, your prayers, the fact that your parishioners came out and pulled the lever, we have our second man of African descent to be the 110th mayor of New York City, and that is Mayor Eric Adams. So, let's show our mayor some love.

Mayor Eric Adams: Some years ago I was in Gorée Island off the coast of Senegal. I went down into the dungeons, and you can still feel the energy of the millions of African slaves that were tortured. And inside those dungeons, women would be raped and babies were killed. And they would go to this place where it was called Door of No Return. And they would take this long voyage over to America.

And if you would have looked closely, on top of the dungeon was a Christian church. While the torturing was going on, the people inside the Christian church use religion and exploited religion as the purpose to ensure slavery would continue. And one could have easily walked away having hatred towards Christianity. One could have easily walked away and felt as though Jesus Christ, the son of God, did something wrong because of the exploitation of the religion.

And I raise that today because there was a group called Hamas. Hamas decided to go into Southern Israel, and they dragged out innocent people, tore  their bodies through the streets, beheaded some, raped some, burned down their homes. And they hide under disguise, they're saying that they are Muslims. They don't represent Islam no more than those who were slave owners represented Christianity.

But if you allow yourself to take your pain and anger and look at what Christianity represented in our Lord and Savior, then you would do the same thing to allow Hamas to say they represent what Mohammed stands for. So it's up to us to distinguish between the two.

What we saw play out in Israel was not Islam, it was hatred. It was demonism. It was devil worshippers. IT was those who are against the light, not those who are in the light, because you can't walk in the light if you are enslaving people. You can't walk in the light if you are raping people. You can't walk in the light if you are beheading people. You cannot hide behind religion to turn out your devilish deeds.

For as long as we can remember, I gave you two examples, but religion has been exploited for as long as we can remember and think. Man has destroyed religion, but man has also used religion for the good that it is. I think of my brother Bahi who's part of this administration. He had an organization for years called Muslims Giving Back. They would go into Manhattan and feed the homeless. They would use their own money to buy blankets during the winter time.

I think about those Muslims who walk with me when someone put out a flier saying Kill a Muslim Day. And they walked with me together, as we stated we would stand next to our Muslim brothers and sisters. And let me tell you, my Muslim brothers and sisters, when we walked with those brothers and sisters who were Muslim, there was not one Christian that felt as though we were talking about them when we said we were denouncing that hatred towards Muslims.

There was not one Jewish person that said, you are denouncing Judaism because you are standing with those Muslim brothers and sisters. So, no Muslim in the city, no Muslim in this country should believe because we denounce what Hamas has done that we are denouncing Islam, because that is not true and we're not buying that rhetoric. We are not going to buy that rhetoric.

Being people of faith is being honest and forthright and true and point out when religion is being exploited by anyone. That is the job you have to do as a person of faith, and that's the job I'm going to do. Our record is clear: we stand side by side with the people of faith in this city and this country.

I've never been apologetic for saying I believe in God. I believe in God.

And it wasn't by coincidence a few months ago we said, no matter what people say, it's time to pray. It's time to pray. We don't see what's taking place and playing out on the stage of our cities?  We don't see what's happening to our children? We don't see that our babies are feeling as though there's no more faith in their lives?

We're watching a level of total despair among our young people. Many of them are high with hallucinating drugs all the time, and we don't even see it. They ride on the top of subway trains losing their lives, and we don't even see it. They start their day learning how to steal cars, to have criminal records, and we don't even see it. They get up in the morning to stop at the bodega and buy cannabis and try to sit in the classroom, and we don't see it.

They're being depressed all the time, and we don't see it. Black boys and Latino boys are carving highways of death with 9‑millimeter bullets throughout out community taking other young people, and we don't even see it.

I don't care what anyone says, it's time to pray.

And when you pray, prayer works.

Prayer works.

And we've become so modern, we've become so sophisticated, we've become so prosperous and pompous. But I remember a day a woman got on her knees and said, help my son and his dyslexia, and she prayed. I remember a day when a woman walked into the 103 Precinct with that bible in her hand, and they said, give up on him. He will never be anything. And she says, I'm going to pray.

I remember a day when a woman thought...that has six children would not have a roof over their heads because the uncertainty of being able to hold on, but she prayed. And it's only because of that woman that you could go from being dyslexic, arrested, rejected and now I'm being elected to be the mayor of the City of New York.

I don't care what anyone says, it's time to pray!

It's time to pray. That's what we need to do right now. God places us in places when the time is needed. This is one of the most significant moments we're having right now here on Gracie Mansion. This is "the" most important city on the globe. The way goes America goes New York, goes America. The way goes America goes the globe.

So, if I am the most important mayor on the globe, then you're the most important faith leaders on the globe.

So, if you pray, it cascades throughout the entire country and it cascades throughout the entire globe. It's all on our backs right now. Saving the globe is going to start under this tent. We have to be reignited with our faiths, because the time of faith is not when things are going well, it's when all things have fallen apart. That is when it's a time for faith.

And then we must become not just worshippers. Some of us have been professional worshippers. We have to be executioners. We have to take what we learned in the sterilized environments of our religious institutions and then go execute it in the streets.

You cannot have gun violence of this magnitude in the city with all of these people of faith. We can't have homelessness on our streets with all of these people of faith. We cannot have the despair of depression and suicide and drug use with all the people of faith in this city.

I'll never forget the most significant moment in my life was when I was a little boy. We used to attend this little small church, we called it the Cheers Church: everyone knew your name and everyone was glad you came.

I tell this story often because we have to remind ourselves. We would go during the night, during the day, take a break and go back at night. That break time was when you were supposed to eat. Mommy was raising six children, so we didn't have that moment, we would just sing and rejoice and pray during a moment, hoping that the hunger pangs would go away.

And then one evening, a car caravan, a woman pulled up to our home. They started unloading boxes of groceries, and they brought it inside our house and they put it on the counter top and they prayed with us, and we sang together. That evening when I went downstairs and I looked in the box, I saw that the boxes were opened. Half a box of pancake mix, half a box of spaghetti, half a jar of mustards and mayonnaise.

Those women could not afford to buy us groceries; They went into their cupboards and they gave us half of what they had, because they said they wanted to give from their hearts. Tithe and offering is more than 10 percent going back into the plate on Sunday, it is, our lives need to go back to giving.

So, the reason there's so much despair, because we have decided no longer of giving half of what we got. It's time now to look at what we have. We have a closet full of coats, yet we have children going to school with windbreakers every day. Give them one of your coats!  We have children during the wintertime wearing slippers because they don't have shoes when we have a closet full of shoes. Give up some of those shoes!

We can give more. Eric Adams is Mayor because those women went into their cupboards and gave me half of what they got. How many Eric Adams‑es are still out there right now waiting for you to give them half of what you got?  That's what we need to do. Something has happened to us. You didn't come from the Caribbean and go to the homeless shelter, you came in and you stayed with auntie until you were able to get on your feet.

You didn't come from Africa and go into some homeless location, you came in and you stayed with the Imam or you stayed with one of your brothers and sisters that came before you and held on. You didn't come to the South and had to go and sleep on the street, you came and you stayed with your cousin until you were able to sustain yourself.

I don't care who you are, don't get it mixed up and try to recreate your past. You know we all needed each other to get to where we are right now.

So, if you needed each other, then why don't those who are coming behind us need each other?  I don't care what anyone says, it's time to pray. It's time to pray. And prayer works. Prayer works. And I'm clear by seeing your faces, you know, Pastor Hamatheite, I know what you do. I'm clear when I see many of you that's here.

I know I'm preaching to the choir. I'm clear on that. And many of you, you wrote the song. This is choir practice, because too many people out there are singing off key. They think it's a solo and not a chorus. We must have everyone singing in unison as we start the process of healing this land. I don't know where I read it, but I recall, if my people would turn to me and pray, I will hear the land. We have a land that needs healing.

We have a land in Brooklyn that needs healing. We have a land in the Bronx that needs healing. We have a land in Manhattan that needs healing, a land in Queens, a land in Staten Island, a land in New Jersey, a land in Rhode Island, a land in Los Angeles, a land in San Francisco, a land in St. Louis, a land in Iowa, a land in Ohio.

There's a land that needs to be healed, and if we heal the land, that spirituality and that healing will cascade throughout the entire globe. Starts here. I know it can happen, you know it could happen. You are excited about the possibilities. You know the power of prayer.

And so I'm going to ask you, who's in this house?  Who in this house is a pastor of a church?  Come on, Pastor Hamatheite, come up here. Oh, you got him here?  Okay, they got him here. I want a pastor of the church to come up here. Come on, Bishop. I want an Imam to come up here. Stand right here. I want an Imam to come up here. I want a Sikh leader to come up here. If we have a Catholic faith leader to come up.

If we have a Buddhist to come up. Who's a Buddhist?  I know I saw some of my Buddhist brothers and sisters here. We have someone from the Coptic church to come up. Who do I have back here, Pastor?  Yoruba, come up. C'mon, let me help you up, reverend, we've got to help each other. Church of God, c'mon, come on up.

So, okay, okay. So, this is who we are. This is who you are, who we are. And I keep telling people all the time, and I'm going to keep saying this until it resonates. I was at Ruschell Boone's funeral. Let me tell you something, people. Energy, we are made of. We are made up of energy. We are made up of vibration. And energy cannot be created or destroyed. It cannot be created or destroyed. It can only be transformed. That's all it can do. And this is straight science.

And I'm saying today as I sit here with these faith leaders, I'm asking them to call on the energy of our ancestors. Call on the energy of those who have transitioned from the physical to the spiritual but they're still with us. Their energy is all around us. And the only way you can feel and see their energy is to acknowledge the existence of it.

And what we must do right now, we must transform also from just readers to believers, because anyone can go through the custom of reading a tradition or a faith; now we are moving to the point of from being a reader to a believer. And when you are a believer, then you know that that energy is going to be in you to transform where we are now.

We are in dark days. We're in dark days. Don't kid yourselves. These days that we are in are dark. When you have 20,000 children walking through the Darién Gap an some of them not making it through, those are dark days. When you have Ukraine watching themselves being bombed and little babies are dying, those are dark days. When you have families committing mass suicides in their homes killing their children and the wives and the husbands, those are dark days.

So, these dark days could only find a light if we reconnect ourselves with the universal understanding that it is with our faith that we can accomplish that task. And so yes, people will say, well, you know, you're the mayor, you're a politician, don't bring God into the philosophy and concept. No, you don't bring God in. I'm bringing God in. God got me here. God is going to sustain me. God is going to maintain me.

God is going to make sure we get through this mess that folks are trying to keep us out of. And so I'm asking, in your own faith, I'm asking you to pray. I'm asking you not to pray silently in your own faith, I want you to allow your words to go out and fill this tent, because these are the soldiers that are going to fight the battle, because this is spiritual… Spiritual warfare. We're on spiritual warfare right now. So, we need to ignite the soldiers.

So, let's just, right from where you are, just pray. Just pray.

Thank you. God bless you. Let's go in peace.