Mohabat News, an Iranian Christian news agency, said in a recent report that Christianity is spreading rapidly among youth in some cities. “This high rate of conversion of Iranian youth to Christianity is in spite of rigorous Islamic indoctrination of the youth in their families and educational system,” according to the report.
“The Islamic government of Iran dedicates massive budgets to the support of Islamic organiza-tions that promote Islam among the youth within and without Iran’s borders,” the report continued. “Regardless of such efforts, Iranian youth seem to become increasingly distant from Islam, which is a cause of great concern for the Iranian Islamic govern-ment.”
One of the most senior Islamic Shi’ite clerics who has repeatedly expressed his concern over the spread of Christianity among the youth in the country is Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi. He, as well as most of his colleagues blame the foreign influence for the conver-sion of young Iranians to Christia-nity. The question that comes up however, is that what could be the real cause for Iranian youths’ rejection of Islam and its princi-ples, despite the serious risks involved with conversion to Christianity in an Islamic country such as Iran?
Last year, after Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi expressed his deepest concern over the popula-rity of Christianity in the suburbs of Mashhad, the city’s religious and political officials immediately sent a vast number of Islamic tea-chers and preachers to Mashhad’s suburbs in order to turn the youth away from Christianity. The next phase in dealing with this matter was to crack down on the youth who refused to turn back following the efforts of Islamic teachers and preachers.
