The Virtues Project

A Brief Evaluation

The Virtues Project and The Virtues Guide produced by Linda Kavelin Popov, Dan Popov, and John Kavelin, from Canada, are being promoted as neutral values teaching programmes that will help individual children as well as school and general communities. These programmes have been promoted in suburban community newspapers, schools, university extension courses, and other contexts, as non-religious and non-sectarian.

We believe the evidence reveals something different to the perceptions being promoted.

The Virtues Project - A Bahai Programme

It is not, unfortunately, openly stated by the promoters, but the three authors, Linda and Dan Popov, and John Kavelin, are not only related in family but also in religion - all three are Baha’is.

The course and The Virtues Guide have drawn predominantly from Baha’i sources and concepts:

B.1. The virtues listed in this programme can mostly be found in a wide variety of Baha’i books and listings - e.g. see list in The Light of Baha’u’llah, p.110 - also indexes of books such as Becoming a Baha’i;

B.2. Under ‘Scriptural References’ on p.57 of The Virtues Guide 3 references are listed for the Baha’i Faith, 2 for Buddhism, and one for each of the other Faiths mentioned; in the ‘Bibliography’ on p.58 there are 4 specific Baha’i sources listed - out of all proportion, for a relatively minor religion, in comparison to other major religions and their one or two listed sources, and the non-religious sources listed.

The Virtues Project and the facilitator seminars are promoted and organised by and through Baha’is. The Popov’s were first sponsored to Australia by the Baha’is during the International Year of the Family (1994).

The Virtues Guide, and other related The Virtues Project materials, cards, consumables, a meditation book on the virtues by Linda Popov, are all sold and distributed by the Baha’i centres and outlets ( bookshops etc). These materials are listed in the Baha’i Publications Australia catalogue. There have apparently been plans, or hopes, to try and have major bookshops stock the materials as well.

The Virtues Project presentation and its general, and seemingly multi-faith approach, is totally consistent with other approaches and activities used by Baha’is to promote their Cause (religion) and make it more acceptable to the general community - including active involvement in, and initiation of, community programmes on issues such as: peace, unity, the environment. The Baha’i Community has a deliberate agenda of using education/educational situations/educational programmes to promote their activities and their faith (see books such as: Each One Teach One - A Call to the Individual Believer [e.g. pp.10-11], Baha’i Education, Education - A Baha’i Perspective, The Individual and Teaching - Raising the Divine Call, Teaching the Baha’i Faith). The Baha’is also have a deliberate policy of targeting prominent people, including teachers and other educationalists - as well as indigenous people (e.g. see chapters 5 & 6 Teaching the Baha’i Faith).

The Virtues Project - A Religious Programme

Several of the listed virtues in the Guide are specifically religious: e.g. Prayerfulness, Reverence, many others are regarded as part of the spiritual and religious beliefs of the Baha’is.

Throughout the programme and Guide there are constant references to religious concepts, especially: God; how children relate to God; how various virtues please God or relate to God; God as Creator, etc. The Guide states: ‘The Virtues Project contains a very simple approach to God, woven into various Virtues. God is described as: *Loving, *Wanting the best for and from us, *One you can trust, *One Who has the power to take care of us and our problems, *One Who has sent us Guidance through the Holy Books’ (p.45).

Chapters 2 and 3 of The Virtues Guide specifically deal with the spirituality of children and their God-given natures. Spiritual expression and activity in everyday life are also discussed. In these chapters it is stated that: ‘Forming values is a spiritual activity’ (p.33); ‘Making choices is s spiritual activity’ (p.35); ‘Acting responsibly is a spiritual activity’ (p.40); ‘Making moral decisions is a spiritual activity’ (p.42). Readers of the Guide are told to become Spiritual Companions, and are advised to support children’s relationships with God (pp.42-45). Parents are also given ‘Effective ways to support the development of conscience and spiritual growth when children do something unacceptable’ and are warned about ‘ways to destroy conscience and pervert spiritual growth’ (p.12). The Guide also states that children need to be given ‘the opportunity to exercise their spirituality’ - and that failure to motivate spiritual activity in children is to treat children as ‘irresponsible and worthless human beings’ (p.15). Parents are also asked to personally answer some very specifically religious questions: e.g. ‘How were your family’s material and spiritual values passed on to you? What do you remember your parents talking about most?’ ‘What place did God and religion have in your life as a family? How has that affected your religious practices as they are now?’ (p.34).

Information hand-out sheets from The Virtues Project, such as the ‘Core Principles of the Virtues Guide’ refers to the Virtues being angels in theology (but fail to mention which theology); it states that ‘self-esteem is a natural outcome of living by spiritual principles.’ It also states that the 5 Strategies of The Virtues Project are for ‘supporting spiritual champions’ and that the 5^th Strategy is to ‘offer Spiritual Companioning.’