To-day the healing power of Truth is widely demonstrated as an immanent, eternal Science Instead of a phenomenal exhibition. Its appearing is the coming anew of the gospel of "on earth peace, good-will toward men."
—Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 150

What's different about Christian Science healing today? To be accurate, nothing is different about this system of healing through entirely spiritual means. It happens today in the same way, on the same basis, that it always has.

Jesus of Nazareth showed his first followers they could face down the human mind's greatest doubts and fears concerning sickness and death, and find the healing that flows from a divine source. Nothing has changed about Christian healing. Nothing could, because such healing is the effect of the God who is unchanging and total good. And those who turn to Him for healing are still learning the extraordinary capacity of His infinite goodness to dispel the shape-shifting appearances of evil, whichever the century.

Christ Jesus' teaching, after all, was that God's will actually is done on earth, not just in heaven. The Old Testament prophet Malachi spoke of God's promise to open "the windows of heaven" and to pour out an immense blessing in the here and now—when we bring all of our homage to God (Mal. 3:10).

This blessing is much more than the Divine responding to a list of human wants. It is instead our own realization of the great reality of God and all that means to us. When even a degree of this spiritual understanding enters our lives, it makes a remarkable difference. It does feel as though the windows of heaven have been opened. The habitual impression of limited, ceaselessly difficult circumstances—lack of health or too little income or too much fear about all sorts of things—begins to lose its grip. We're making room in our thought and our life to receive all that God already is, and the amazing good this naturally brings to us. One healing builds on another, making more and more evident the existence of the divine Principle that is Love.

This often happens in the experience of a Christian Science practitioner. In my own recent healing practice, I've had a variety of cases, but two in particular appeared extremely pressing at about the same time. One man had been involved in drug addiction, instances of life-threatening overdosing, and criminal charges that came about as the result of the addiction. Another man was medically diagnosed with diabetes, and with psychiatrically diagnosed mental conditions. He'd lost his business and home, and had declared bankruptcy.

During the time I was praying about these very 21st-century conditions, I was greatly inspired by Christian Science healings I'd heard about from others. A fellow Christian Science teacher, for example, told me of her own healing of cataracts. Then, solid steps of healing progress in one of those demanding cases mentioned earlier would encourage me to persist even more strongly with divine Principle in regard to the other, and vice versa. Finally, healing came for both men, with such clear-cut life-changes that their friends said they seemed like new persons altogether.

Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered Christian Science, wrote of Jesus as "the most scientific man that ever trod the globe." She said, "He plunged beneath the material surface of things, and found the spiritual cause" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 313). From that standpoint, one can see that Jesus gives a unique example of living based on the actuality of God who is the source of every good, and who is our Creator, our Father-Mother.

Plainly, for Jesus, the universe wasn't as it appears to the senses and to the mind shaped by those senses. He knew it all belonged instead to God, and that we in fact are of God, of Spirit. We are His offspring, and our deepest, unalterable being is therefore spiritual, not material. Far from being "prescientific," the knowledge of God that enabled Jesus to heal the sick and sinning still remains ahead of the times even in the 21st century.

While Christian Science healing hasn't changed, the mental atmosphere of the age certainly has. And that makes different and greater demands on those who want to continue to practice spiritual healing with any consistency. But these demands do them good. They don't require a change in Christian Science. They do call for a change in those who would practice it. More is certainly needed than occasional obedience to Truth when a problem comes up. Working steadily to know more of divine Truth, individuals find the Science of God naturally becoming the unquestionable priority of their lives.

Mrs. Eddy long ago insisted on this priority, not only for Christian Science practitioners but for church members, and even for newcomers taking first steps after an initial healing. "Nothing aside from the spiritualization—yea, the highest Christianization—of thought and desire," she wrote in Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, "can give the true perception of God and divine Science, that results in health, happiness, and holiness" (p. 15). What's new is that now we're being forced to pay closer attention to the original instructions!

One of the things that comes as one more constantly lets thought be lifted up by Truth, the Christ, is new awareness that the world is a mental place, not a substantive reality. We know in general that the worldly world is literally a mental construction, made out of ambitions, will, ego, greed, opinion, pride of life. Of such, are economic crises for nations, and massive fraud by individuals. Of such, are wars, and damage to the environment. This is the obvious and seen.

But what about the unseen devilish belief of a separate intelligence in matter constantly at work behind the scenes? This lie (and "liar," as Jesus identified it) flatly denies and mocks every spiritual intuition (see John 8:44). It would reverse, if it could, humanity's natural course toward more Spirit, more God.

Those who practice Christian Science healing today need to understand that the reality and practicality of anything solely spiritual is being severely challenged. The message of a materialistic society isn't just a matter of some irritating marketing on television and the Internet. It's a noxious, pervasive atmosphere of thought, which, if allowed, intrudes on and darkens our own spiritual understanding. Its mesmeric tendency is to block anyone from drawing a free, deep, liberating breath from the Holy Spirit.

But the answer to today's greatest need is already here. We can feel freedom from destructive mental influences because this is what the divine Mind, which is God, naturally affords. Divine Science, the full revelation of the knowledge of God's All-ness, is supreme over the carnal mind's attempted warfare with spiritual light and progress for humanity. "The 'still, small voice' of scientific thought," Mrs. Eddy wrote, "reaches over continent and ocean to the globe's remotest bound. The inaudible voice of Truth is, to the human mind, 'as when a lion roareth'" (Science and Health, p. 559).

Specifically, what does that mean to someone striving to practice Christian Science healing today? It means that the negative suggestions regarding the effectiveness of Christian Science healing get uncovered as less than objective. We catch on to the fact that they are not our own thought but a contagion of worldly attitudes, which of course lacks experience of the concreteness of spiritual reality. So we wake up. We're able to ask ourselves, Which am I going to choose? The majority of human opinion, or all that I've found in a new spiritual consciousness and its powerful effects for change and healing for the world?

As this spiritualization goes on, everything begins to look quite different. Appearances change with this change from supposing one has a mind mired in material circumstances. One begins to accept the fact of fresh, spiritual consciousness given directly by God. We remember our own past healings more vividly. They're no longer overlaid with the skepticism of the times. We have more healings of our own in the present, and we can't help hearing of more healing among friends and those newly interested in Christian Science.

No longer are we tempted to believe Christian Science is at a disadvantage in the world. We're in awe of just how incredibly timely it is, and how it is speaking simply and powerfully to the heart of humanity. Christian Science churches grow when viewed scientifically as what they are—vital centers of genuine love and spiritual light and healing for humanity.

With these clearer views comes the conviction of God's unopposable impelling of His own purpose. We can't help feeling the vast potential of Christian Science healing today. And we see how spiritual reality, appearing now, defines us, enables us, embraces us, along with the "millions of unprejudiced minds" who are ready to hear (Science and Health, p. 570).

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