India’s anti-conversion laws moved from arrest to adjudication this week: a Muzaffarnagar court refused bail to twelve people seized at a prayer meeting after a Bajrang Dal tip-off. Strasbourg, meanwhile, struck down a Bulgarian ban on door-to-door preaching. Elsewhere: the Ahmadiyya Caliph announced 267,596 new adherents at Jalsa Salana UK; Texas Baptists counted 500 decisions from a World Cup campaign; Sinhala-Buddhist critics shifted from anti-conversion bills to colonial restitution; and AI is quietly ending missionary “creative access.”
Proselytism and Religious Outreach Worldwide: Conflicts, Policies, and Trends – 19–26 June 2026
This week’s briefing centres on India’s regulatory escalation: new FCRA Rules 2026 (22 June) explicitly bar foreign funds for religious conversion, reinforced by the Timothy Initiative UAPA case and seven pastors sentenced in Madhya Pradesh. The Vatican consistory (26–27 June) saw Pope Leo XIV restate the witness-vs-proselytism line. Adventists publicly questioned their own evangelism’s cultural sensitivity.