In recent posts I have referenced the work of sociologists Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning. Their work points to shifts in our culture. Specifically they not we have shifted from a “dignity culture” (where aggrieved parties tended to let more minor slights go because it was assumed that all people have a central dignity that they don’t need to earn) back to an “honor culture” that we last experienced in the 18th and 19th centuries – where slights had to be avenged; when we had duels. These pistols and swords have been replaced by tweets, posts, and vitriolic. Wounding and death still occurs, only under another guise.
I think about this is the light of the readings for the Solemnity of Christ the King. The gospel, Matthew 25, in its command to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, visit the imprisoned and more – this gospel points out we are called by Christ to ever live in a “dignity culture” because all people have a God-given core dignity that don’t need to earn back.
I read an article this morning by Dr. Alex Piquero from the University of Miami. His focus was on restorative justice. But I think it again raises the culture divide raised by Campbell and Manning.
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Next Sunday is the 
“I, John, looked and there was the Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with him a hundred and forty-four thousand who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads.” (Rev 14:1) And so begins 
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