Fifteen is the age at which a child attains spiritual maturity, and thus it is at the age of fifteen that a Baha'i child assumes the responsibility for obeying such laws as those of fasting and prayer, and for affirming of his own volition his faith in Baha'u'llah.
At the present time the Universal House of Justice prefers to leave it to each National Spiritual Assembly to decide what method is to be followed in ascertaining the attitude of Baha'i children when they reach fifteen, provided that it is clear that a Baha'i child is not becoming a Baha'i at that age, but is simply affirming his faith on his own behalf. One Spiritual Assembly, for example, sends a very kind letter to each Baha'i child in its community on the occasion of his fifteenth birthday (unless, of course, it has reason to doubt that the child in question is a Baha'i), explaining the meaning of attaining the age of maturity, and extending the good wishes of the Assembly for his future services to the Cause. This does not require an active response from every child but does provide each with an opportunity to make his position clear if desired. In whatever procedure it adopts a National Spiritual Assembly must wisely steer a course between seeming to doubt the faith of a child who has been brought up as a devout Baha'i on the one hand, and seeming to compel a child to be a member of the Baha'i community against his will, on the other.
If the Assembly ascertains from a youth that he does not, in fact, accept the Faith, even if he has been brought up in a Baha'i family, it should not register him as a Baha'i youth, and such a youth, since he is now mature and responsible for his own actions, would be in the same situation as any other non-Baha'i youth who is in close contact with the Baha'i community. He should be treated with warmth and friendship.
It may happen that a Baha'i child, on reaching the age of fifteen is not entirely sure in his own mind. This can well happen if one of the parents is not a Baha'i or if the parents have accepted the Faith not long before. In such a case the Assembly should not assume automatically that he is not a Baha'i. If the youth wishes to attend Feasts and is content to continue to be regarded as a Baha'i as he was when a child, this should be permitted, but in the process of deepening his understanding of the Faith his parents and the Assembly should explain to him that it is his responsibility to soon make his position clear.
- The Universal House of Justice (From a letter dated 19 July 1982, written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice to the NSA of the United Kingdom; ‘Messages from the Universal House of Justice, 1963-1986’)
