Peter Laarman

The truth is that the administration simply caved before the still potent specter of so-called “Death Panels”—a specter created last year by the likes of Sarah Palin, John Boehner, and other disingenuous opponents of health care reform. Let’s just say that in this new year, Team Obama is worried to death (pardon the expression) about defending its signature health care law from further assaults from the newly-emboldened Republicans.

Just about all of the issues that we religious folk insist we really care about—issues like world poverty and hunger, resource wars and environmental degradation, human trafficking, widening domestic inequality, shrinking access to quality higher education, declining on-time graduation rates for low-income students and students of color, urban neighborhood blight, stress-related health problems, declining family life and domestic violence—are directly related to systemic debt oppression.

There is nothing small-bore or contemptible about a novel that explores the wonder and heartbreak of romantic love against the distant thunder of imperial warfare.