Point and Counterpoint on the Mayor’s Recent Rollout of Religion in Politics
Hank Sheinkopf is a former police officer and a one time union organizer. He’s largely consulted for Democratic candidates since becoming a PR consultant and his client list has included Bill Clinton and Mike Bloomberg. He applauds Mayor Eric Adams recent embrace of that ol’ tyme religion.
| 17 Apr 2023 | 05:55
New York City Mayor Eric Adams speaks at an interfaith clergy event at the House of the Lord Pentecostal church in Brooklyn, on Friday, June 12, 2022. Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office
Representatives of liberal left New York, less worried about how many South Bronx residents might get shot on any day, had a fit when the Mayor recently had the temerity to stand up and acknowledge his attachment to—gasp—religion.
Mayor Adams took it a step further— too far some might say—when he said that, in his mind, no separation between church and state exists. The operative words: in his mind.
It was a bad day for the anything goes crowd and a good day for the rest of us.
In the account of his 1831 American journey, Alexis de Tocqueville — once required reading for political science students, but likely tossed by the student loan-supported college industry on the same garbage pile upon which rests liberal arts—marveled at the new nation’s level of religious engagement, and the stability of its economy.
So, here we are. American dollar bills have the words “In God We Trust” boldly imprinted. We have invocations by clergy at our public functions. Public discourse mentions Sunday schools. Politicians speak to congregations at houses of worship. Government-funded programs are housed in religious institution facilities and we knowingly elect clergy to public offices.
Churches, mosques and synagogues serve as places of shelter, hope and protection from harm. And that’s likely what the mayor was talking about when a small part of New York lost its mind.
Yes, it’s true that religious affiliation is declining. Churches, houses of worship are closing. The voices that both seek to save those in need, to protect them from themselves and to give hope are disappearing.
The result? Look at our streets.
Keep waiting for those who spoke loudest against Mayor Adams’ words to open a soup kitchen in their lobbies or put a homeless person on the couch in their living rooms. Ask them where youth programs should be housed. How about in in their second homes?
Adams wasn’t saying let’s all pray or else. He was saying the obvious. Religion and the church saved him from the streets. What’s so bad about that?
Hank Sheinkopf is CEO of Sheinkopf Communications, an international public affairs firm in Manhattan.