Mayor Eric Adams’ recent comments at an interfaith breakfast drew much attention bad– Criticism of faith.
“We need to find a way to instill some form of spirituality in our children, because they’re not fighting against the seen, they’re fighting against the unseen,” Meyer urged in followup comments. “These poor kids are growing up in such an environment – it’s so sad for them.”
Critics focused on his breakfast complaint that “when we took prayers out of schools, guns came into schools,” along with tweets of a “crazy outcry” and saying, “People of New York, you should do better. .”
“It’s odd that Mayor Adams would need a refresher on the First Amendment,” sniffed Donna Lieberman of the New York Civil Liberties Union.
In fact, Lieberman needs that refresher. As Adams noted, “The school has clear rules about prayers,” and, “I don’t have the power to change that. I’ve given you my faith.”
Adams’ entire comments show that he completely missed the point. “If we’re bringing our best fight to the ring,” he said, “we’re not going to have homeless people in this city. We won’t have a domestic violence crisis.” Teaching kids to be better (so we have better adults!) “means instilling in them some level of trust and confidence.”
This is not a call to turn public schools into religious schools, just a reminder that spirituality gives strength and peace to fight the most worthy battles, even and especially to young people.
You may disagree, but a lot of evidence supports this idea.
Statistics show that religious people are much more generous with time and money towards charity than non-religious people. They are less likely to have children out of wedlock — and children raised by both parents face better odds of succeeding in life.
Other evidence suggests that active religious people are also less likely to engage in crime.
Many young people today are sad and lonely. Those who insist that it is somehow bad To argue that they can benefit from the comfort and guidance of faith is only exposing their own bigotry.
