ABSTRACT 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.

ABSTRACT The multispecies family has grown rapidly over the past 30 years in the United States. Scholarly understanding of pets as legitimate family members is increasing, but most work has been qualitative in nature. Statistical modeling of these dynamics has been bound by a lack of access to large‐scale, nationally representative datasets paywalled by industry actors like the American Veterinary Medical Association and American Pet Products Association, yet quantitative analysis of this growing family type is greatly needed. In answer to this need, the 2018 General Social Survey (GSS) included several questions regarding pets and relationship dynamics. The objective of this paper is to use these data to model select variables as predictive of who considers their pet part of the family in the United States. Using binary logistic regression, I measure the likelihood that children ever born, gender, Catholicism, and singlehood predict respondent assignment of family status to household pets. Respondents who had never had children were 107% more likely than those with at least one child to almost always assign family status to their pets. Women were 99% more likely to almost always label their pets as family. Catholics were about 40% less likely to do so than non‐Catholics. Singlehood was not significant. No statistical research considers how household structure (as modeled here) impacts the assignment of family to pets in the United States. Furthermore, these findings advance research needed for future work examining how pet ownership impacts fertility intentions.

ABSTRACT In his reply to “Old Wine in New Wineskins,” Foertsch argues that positivist critiques of the “Christian nationalism” literature are deficient and advocates for continued application of critical epistemology in this area of research. In response, I argue, first, that the focus on positivism mischaracterizes the interpretivist critique in “Old Wine in New Wineskins” while unintentionally implicating most of the evidentiary basis for claims about “Christian nationalism.” Second, critical epistemology relies on a set of first principles that are, at minimum, non‐obvious and controversial, but necessary for his counter‐critique to be effective. I reject critical epistemology for its circularity and offer an alternative and more minimal set of first principles from which to conduct sociological inquiry. I nonetheless affirm Foertsch's explicit recognition of the critical epistemological commitments underlying the “Christian nationalism” research agenda as well as his call for deeper philosophical reflection in this area of scholarship.

ABSTRACT This essay argues that Black Reconstruction provides a foundation for rethinking sociology along decolonial lines. While several sociologists have discussed the need to decolonize the discipline, persistent questions remain about what such an endeavor would entail and whether it could be realized within sociology's existing frameworks. Black Reconstruction , however, anticipated and exemplified the possibility of a decolonial sociology long before these debates emerged. The book achieves this by offering a decolonial understanding of modernity alongside an alternative methodological approach for the discipline. It redefines modernity as inherently racialized and reconceptualizes capitalism as a racial–colonial formation. Furthermore, its methodological vision integrates second sight, conjunctural analysis, and a rethinking of the relationships between sociology and history, as well as between the local and the global. Ultimately, Black Reconstruction shows that a decolonial sociology is not only possible but a far better way to practice the discipline.

ABSTRACT In 1935, W. E. B. Du Bois published one of the most important pieces of historical scholarship from the twentieth century, Black Reconstruction in America: An Essay Toward a History of the Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860–1880. While the book has received significant discussion in disciplines such as Black studies, history, American studies, and political science, sociologists in general have been slow to discuss this momentous piece of scholarship. This disciplinary oversight is interesting, given that Black Reconstruction has much to offer across a range of sociology's subfields, such as comparative historical sociology, political sociology, sociology of race and ethnicity, and sociology of labor. In order to redress this disciplinary oversight, we arranged for a plenary panel on Black Reconstruction on its 90th anniversary at the Decolonizing Sociology mini‐conference of the Eastern Sociological Society's (ESS) annual meeting of 2025. This special section of Sociological Forum—ESS's flagship journal—draws upon that plenary panel.

ABSTRACT Existing scholarship on US professors' political views focuses overwhelmingly on their attitudes toward social and cultural issues rather than economic ones. This study explores American academics' perspectives on redistributive economic policy by analyzing Federal Elections Commission data from the 2019–2020 Democratic Party presidential primary, which include records of campaign contributions from 83,334 faculty and more than 6.5 million non‐faculty. Given the unprecedented diversity of economic ideology among the 2019–2020 Democratic presidential primary candidates and the fact that an overwhelming majority of professors in the US support Democrats, these data are uniquely useful in gauging the extent of academics' support for government efforts to downwardly redistribute income and wealth. Moreover, since contributions measure actual political behavior, they offer a more reliable proxy for policy preferences than self‐reported survey data. The donations reveal that, in general, professors gravitate more readily than the rest of the population toward candidates who aggressively support downward redistribution. This dynamic, however, derives entirely from academics' disproportionate support for technocratically minded candidates like Elizabeth Warren. In fact, professors are significantly less likely than those in other occupations to give to self‐described “socialist” politicians, such as Bernie Sanders, who propose achieving redistributionist objectives by way of popular mass movements.

ABSTRACT Critical race theory (CRT), developed by legal scholars over forty years ago, highlights how structural racism is embedded within American institutions. Yet, CRT did not become a national flashpoint until 2020, during the height of Black Lives Matter demonstrations against racial injustice. At that time, CRT attracted widespread condemnation from conservative lawmakers, who claimed it was unfair to whites and introduced legislation to ban it from K‐12 public schools, even though CRT was not formally included in these curricula. Given the potentially long‐lasting effects of such legislation on how racism is taught in public education, it is important to better understand Americans' attitudes toward CRT and the factors shaping them. Our mixed methods study examines whether white grievance (the belief that whites are victims of anti‐white discrimination) predicts opposition to teaching CRT in K‐12 public schools. Ordinal regression results show white Americans who endorse white grievance beliefs are significantly less likely than people of color to support CRT instruction in schools. Our qualitative findings identify three key components of white grievance—white victimhood, colorblind reasoning, and fears of liberal indoctrination—all embedded within epistemologies of ignorance. These themes help explain the relationship between white grievance and opposition to CRT.