Wednesday’s News & Ideas - 5/20/2026

Christian nationalism has arrived in Britain*
Jacobin: Far-right activists in Britain are increasingly adopting the rhetoric of Christian nationalism. 
The Guardian: Is the far right driving a Christian revival in the UK? – video

This U.S. doctor went to Congo to heal others. Then Ebola hit his hospital.*
The Washington Post: An American missionary doctor who contracted Ebola may have gotten infected while performing surgery on a patient.

Alan Chambers, former Exodus International leader, charged with soliciting minor
Religion News Service: Chambers gained national notoriety for promoting the idea that therapy could change someone’s sexual orientation.

Claims of Christian revival ‘laid to rest’ as churchgoing falls
The Times: Churches are emptier than before the pandemic, and a landmark survery found no evidence for suggestions of a groundswell of religious observance among Gen Z.

Maryland church won’t close shelter after city threatens ‘enforcement action’*
The Christian Century: Nearly six weeks after St. Paul’s by-the-Sea Episcopal Church in downtown Ocean City, Maryland, opened its overnight shelter for unhoused people inside its building, city officials charged the parish with a zoning violation.

The Spark

The prehistory of A.I. Slop
Before ChatGPT, there was the Plot Robot, Auto-Beatnik, and a century’s worth of schemes for automating authorship,* The New Yorker says.

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