Mayor Eric Adams likened himself to the Bible's long-suffering Job and asked the local bishop to “pray for me” during visits to two Brooklyn churches on Sunday, days after the federal government targeted several of the mayor's top officials.
Adams visited Power and Authority Evangelical Ministries on Sheffield Street and Changing Life Christian Center on Linden Street and spoke at both chapels about the Book of Job, calling it “my favorite story.”
“I've had Job-like moments in my life,” Hizzoner said at the Power and Authority Church, paying tribute to the famously persecuted Biblical character and likening his story to his own struggles with learning disabilities, dyslexia and diabetes. “These are Job-like moments. These are moments when your faith is strong.”
“This is where I get my strength,” the mayor later added to reporters. “This is where my energy comes from.”
The reporter asked Adams whether he felt persecuted after federal agents served search warrants on the homes of Police Commissioner Edward Cabana and other aides last week and seized their electronic devices.
“If that's all you get out of a sermon, then you're doing it wrong,” the mayor responded. “We all go through things.”
He then walked to his car and shook hands with the man of power and authority, Bishop Rotimi Onabanjo.
“Please pray. Please pray for everybody,” Adams said. “Please pray for me.”
A spokesman at the scene clarified that he had not asked reporters to pray for him.
Despite the mayor's recent troubles, many church members supported him.
“I'm a fan. I think he's a down-to-earth guy,” Pamela Green, a 40-year-old mother who returned from Changing Lives with her two young children, told The Washington Post.
Elizabeth Armstrong, a 62-year-old nurse, said she agreed.
“Yes, I've read about the investigation against him,” she said, “but to me, when you go into politics and you're in the spotlight, things happen. And that makes his job a little bit harder.”
LaToya Bass, 46, added about Pastor Adams' sermon: “It was a good message.”
“We are happy to have him in the house of the Lord and hope that the Lord will restore him, guide him and lead our city in the right direction.”
“It all has to start with the Lord,” she continued, “or it won't work.”
