The spiritual ministration of Christian Science goes significantly beyond anything anticipated by the medical profession—even those who take what is called a holistic approach, concerning themselves with what they call "the whole person." Christian healing has as its primary focus not the human body but man's relationship to God. Neither is its approach psychological probing of the conscious or unconscious status of the human mind. Instead, Christian healing regenerates the individual by awakening him or her, through the power of prayer, to that Mind "which was also in Christ Jesus." phil. 2:5.
The depth of gratitude people feel when they experience the healing and regenerative effects of Christian Science is due to the fact that Science goes significantly beyond mere repair, stabilization, or restoration of the former status quo—an uncomplaining physical body. In one sense, spiritual healing profoundly disturbs "the former status quo." Spiritual healing corresponds to Jesus' parable of the leaven which a certain woman "took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened." Luke 13:21. The divine influence utterly transforms not only the condition of our life but our entire conception of what life is. The conviction that life is in and of a physical body moving about in a physical universe is superseded by an awakening to life in and of God. In the practice of Christian Science, healing and regeneration always coincide.
It is helpful to remind ourselves that the primary meaning of the word regenerate is "to cause to be spiritually born again...." Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language, 2d ed. (Springfield, Massachusetts: G. & C. Merriam Company, Publishers, 1956), p. 2096 . This means not simply to think in a new way about life, man, and God, but actually to be a new man or woman. To be born of Spirit instead of the flesh. To have God as the center and circumference of our life instead of matter.
