Frederick Buechner in his book Wishful Thinking writes that “the Gospels depict Jesus as having spent a surprising amount of time healing people.  Ever since the time of Jesus, healing has been part of the Christian tradition.  In this century it has usually been associated with religious quackery or the lunatic fringe, but as the psychosomatic dimension of disease has come to be taken more and more seriously by medical science it has regained some of its former respectability.”