Adams Visits Black Churches to Bolster Support as Investigations Heat Up

The New York City mayor, Eric Adams, compared himself to a biblical figure who endured suffering, telling parishioners that he was having a “Job moment.”

After perhaps the most challenging week of his political career, Mayor Eric Adams visited two Black churches in Brooklyn on Sunday and compared himself to Job, a righteous biblical figure who endured immense suffering but whose blessings were ultimately restored.

The mayor never directly addressed the several federal investigations swirling around his administration. Last week, authorities took the phones of his first deputy mayor, his schools chancellor, his deputy mayor for public safety, his police commissioner and his senior adviser.

Yet he used his appearances at the Black churches — a friendly environment that the mayor has often used for political messaging — to liken the investigations to the burdens placed on Job.

“Job lost it all, and even his wife questioned him. ‘Where’s your faith? Where’s God now?’ His friends rebuked him,” Mr. Adams said from the pulpit at Power and Authority Evangelical Ministry in East New York.

“And I wish I could tell you that I had one moment in my life that was a Job moment. But I did not have one. I had many,” the mayor said.

The visits to Changing Lives Christian Center and to Power and Authority Evangelical Ministry — just a few blocks apart in an election district where, in the 2021 Democratic primary, Mr. Adams won more than 76 percent of first-round votes — seemed designed to shore up support among his base.