Eric Adams Assembles Religious Leaders to Bless His Candidacy

Mayor Eric Adams of New York City says he is a man of God, and on Tuesday morning, at an event billed as the “largest citywide religious endorsement ceremony in New York history,” he sought to prove his point.

Standing among New Yorkers in saffron robes, white robes, turbans, kurtas, skullcaps, collars, black hats and even, aberrantly, a cowboy hat, Mr. Adams argued that he could not have lived through the three and a half years of his first term in office without his belief in God.

“You don’t survive this without faith,” Mr. Adams said.

Those three and a half years have been nothing if not tumultuous.

Mr. Adams took office as the city was emerging from the coronavirus pandemic, and soon faced an influx of more than 200,000 migrants whom he was legally required to shelter. He was indicted on federal charges of bribery and fraud, and mounted an ultimately successful campaign to get the Trump administration to abandon the charges.

He saw half of his deputy mayors resign after the Justice Department moved to dismiss the charges, in what both the prosecutor who brought them and the judge who dismissed them described as an apparent quid pro quo, an agreement reached in exchange for Mr. Adams’s help with the president’s deportation agenda.

And through it all, he has endured, openly describing himself as the divinely ordained leader of a city where crime has begun to fall, in keeping with national trends, and where he has (with some exceptions) championed pro-growth housing strategies in a bid to make apartments more affordable.

It is an endurance he has taken to touting as an asset, frequently drawing a contrast with Andrew M. Cuomo, the former governor, who resigned from office after the attorney general of New York found that he had sexually harassed 11 women, allegations he denies.

Mr. Adams “delivers,” read the sign adorning his lectern on Tuesday. “Never quits.”

Mr. Adams, a registered Democrat, is now facing an unusual predicament for the mayor of a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans six to one.

After opting out of the Democratic primary, seemingly because he knew he could not win it, Mr. Adams is now running for re-election as an independent. The polls consistently suggest his path to victory is a long shot.

In November, he will face off against Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist from Queens who won the June Democratic primary and who has a formidable polling lead; Mr. Cuomo, who lost the primary to Mr. Mamdani and is now running as an independent; Curtis Sliwa, the Republican nominee and founder of the Guardian Angels; and Jim Walden, a lawyer running as an independent.

The advisory for Tuesday’s event promised an unusual, if hard-to-verify, spectacle: the mayor of New York City holding “the largest multifaith endorsement event ever,” one featuring “pastors, priests, rabbis, imams, sheikhs, lamas, Rastafarians and gurus.”

People in religious garb were certainly in abundance on the steps of City Hall on Tuesday morning, though it was unclear if they comprised a congregation of historical proportions. Men blew shofars to call the media event to order, and the proceedings began with a prayer from Bishop Chantel Wright, an ally of the mayor’s who wore a white robe and a gold cross.

She compared Mr. Adams to biblical figures, including Moses — “We lift up his arms the same way that Aaron did for his leader,” she said — and to Gideon, whose small army vanquished a far larger one, thanks to the hand of God.

“We are your army,” Bishop Wright said. “We are the ones who are going to be the credible messengers that get the word out that, yes, you are a man of integrity.”

And she alluded to Mr. Adams’s frequent condemnation of the news media, which he derides as dishonest and claims is unwilling to cover him fairly.

“Although the press may never say anything good about you,” she said, “we will open up our mouths like trumpet and Zion, and we will tell of the goodness that you’ve done for this city.”

Sikh, Buddhist and Rastafarian leaders spoke, as did Michael Landau, a rabbi who said the mayor was “at the very pinnacle of integrity, decency, honesty, wisdom and intelligence,” and credited his “moral clarity” on Israel. (Mr. Adams has been an ardent defender of Israel during its war in Gaza, in sharp contrast to Mr. Mamdani.)

An imam, Izak-El Pasha, described Mr. Adams as a “great man.”

“This is good news being brought, good news that we have a man here who comes up through the ranks, who was born here in this great city, knows the ups and downs, knows the crevices and the corners,” he said.

“He is not a man that tells lies,” Mr. Pasha said, ignoring Mr. Adams’s history of tall tales and difficult-to-pin-down stories. “He is not a man that exaggerates the circumstances.”

Several of Mr. Adams’s longtime associates were also in the mix, including Winnie Greco, the mayor’s former aide who resigned months after federal agents searched her homes; and Fernando Cabrera, Mr. Adams’s former senior adviser whose prior embrace of anti-gay positions caused controversy.

When, finally, Mr. Adams took to the lectern, accompanied by chants of “four more years,” he warned reporters that he would not be taking any questions because he was not going to let them ruin his day.

“After I speak, I’m bouncing,” he said. “And you’re not going to tarnish the good news of today.”

Then he asked for a “special prayer”: “Lay hands on our media,” he said. “Heal them. Put honesty in their hearts.”