Testimony of Healing August 20, 1990 Issue

When I first sought public office many years ago, I understood...

John M. Burns

When I first sought public office many years ago, I understood that my stands on various issues would be—as they should be—subject to close scrutiny by the voters and my opponents. I'm afraid that I spent more time on the details of my campaign, however, than I did in protecting myself through prayer against personal attacks on matters not related to my positions on public issues.

Very early in the primary campaign that would determine my party's candidate for a seat in the New York State Assembly, one of my opponents mailed to every voter in my party a letter from a medical professor at a major teaching hospital in my Assembly district. The medical professor urged voters not to vote for me because he was convinced that I, as a Christian Scientist, would be "openly antagonistic to medicine." This doctor also wrote to each of the several physicians and nurses who were serving on my campaign committee, asking them how, as members of the medical profession, they could reconcile their endorsement of a Christian Scientist.

Since my Assembly district contained hundreds of voters working for several major medical facilities in the area, my initial reaction to these attacks was one of fear that they would cost me my party's nomination on primary day—not because of my qualifications but because of my religion.

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