Scientists seeking hard evidence of prayer's curative powers misunderstand the nature of prayer in the Western theistic traditions. Yet theistically consonant ways in which religious belief may influence health do not figure as they should in current professional practice.

Modern physicians are taught that they should not involve themselves in their patients’ religious concerns. Many worry that doing so would be intrusive, manipulative, difficult, and embarrassing. Patients, however, often want their physicians to explore questions of religion and faith with them. If these questions are broached in a sensitive and flexible way, they can be a natural and appropriate part of the physician‐patient relationship.

Art restoration has been around as long as human beings have been involved with artifacts and works of art. Pliny mentions the Shrine of Ceres in the Circus Maximus at Rome.1 When the shrine was undergoing restoration, the embossed work of the walls was cut out and enclosed in framed panels, and figures were taken from the pediment and dispersed. Alteration, or the lack of it, clearly impacts the aesthetic appreciation of works of art, and the hermeneutics of that debate (...) are important in terms of both education and historical understanding.The purpose of this article is to survey the field of restoration and its interaction with problems of interpretation, aesthetic debate... (shrink)