Coverage of health issues has long been a top item on the media's agenda. Whether it's on the nightly network newscast, in your local daily newspaper, the weekly newsmagazines, or the tabloids at the supermarket checkout lane, diseases—and their possible causes and cures—capture a huge amount of air time and column space. By and large, almost all of this coverage is devoted to traditional medical approaches, to new drug therapies and surgical procedures. And although there has been something of a shift in recent years, much less attention is normally given to spiritual methods of healing and health care.

The big news in past weeks has focused on recent medical advances in the war on cancer. Here at the Sentinel, we've been thinking and praying about this issue. In fact, we feel that people need to hear much more about the tremendous value of prayer in fighting—and healing—the most inveterate forms of disease. In this special reprint, contributing editor Nathan Talbot writes about the unequaled healing power of Christ even in today's world of remarkable technologies and sophisticated medical treatments. It's humbling, and tremendously inspiring, to realize that God is indeed still "a very present help in trouble." As Nate confirms in "The life-saving presence of Christ": "If you are in need of healing, you can hear Christ, Truth, tenderly speaking to you in a way that destroys disease. ... Disease cannot withstand the Christ."

This is "good news" for an age that needs all the good news it can get.