Foertsch, Steven. 2025. “Defending Critical Epistemology: The Case of Christian Nationalism and Christofascism.” 2025. Sociological Forum, 0(0):1-5. https://doi.org/10.1111/socf.70044

Christian nationalism and Christofascism theorists have surrendered the discursive floor to their empiricist critics. A flurry of recent research has asserted that critical paradigms within the sociology of religion are ideologically committed and empirically invalid. In this reply to Jesse Smith’s “Old Wine in New Wineskins” (2024), I contend several things: (1) Christian nationalism and Christofascism research is based in empirical validity, (2) claims of “conceptual slippage” are irrelevant given the sociopolitical context, (3) rejection of the critical perspective reifies the unjust power structure through a normative appeal to rational-legal scientific authority, and (4) critical epistemology in the sociology of religion remains a crucial tool in combating authoritarian slippage. It is my hope that this reply sparks further reflection and debate on the role of sociology and the nature of sociological praxis.

Alex, H. Moral Scripts in Prosecutorial Decision-Making: The Interplay Between Self and Others. Qual Sociol (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11133-025-09627-8

This article analyzes the decision-making process of legal actors through an interactionist perspective. Based on interviews from Cook County, Illinois, I show how state attorneys utilize a moral script characterized by three key elements in handling cases: responsibility, proactiveness, and responsiveness. These state attorneys rely on this model not only to justify giving leniency in plea deals, but also when describing their own actions. The reported entanglement between self and others leads the attorneys to be less willing to grant mercy in cases where the self cannot be extended to others through role-taking prompted by social interaction. This study advances courtroom research by demonstrating that perceptions of deservingness are shaped by interpretive and moral factors that transcend fixed demographic categories.

Iceland, J., E.Silver, and I. E.Atac. 2026. “Moral Intuitions and Support for Immigration.” Social Science Quarterly107, no. 2: e70146. https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.70146

Attitudes toward immigration are often shaped by whether immigrants are perceived as a threat to one’s racial, ethnic, or nativity group status. Yet recent research shows that such perceptions vary not only between different groups but also within them. Drawing on Moral Foundations Theory, our study investigates the moral intuitions that lead some individuals to view immigrants as threats and others to see them as deserving of care and support.