Forum 18 writes about Tajikistan’s controversial Parental Responsibility Law. The restriction of evangelistic activity aimed at children and teens is a very important and challenging issue for the church, and one that I don’t find people often writing or thinking or talking about. We’ve heard of the “4/14 Window”–the reality that most religious decisions (e.g. conversions to Christianity) are made between the ages of 4 and 14.
Once you’re over 14, you’re really part of the local social network and it’s not likely that you’ll shift away from the religion you’ve chosen for a whole lot of reasons outlined by a lot of what Rodney Stark has written (see for example “The Rise of Christianity“). The bottom line is that people typically choose to join a religion based more on the value of its social network, at least initially, and only later come to believe its truths.
If a government can control what religion its youth choose (or prevent them from choosing any religion at all), then they can tamp down on the growth of religions as a whole.
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