author: Valentyn Synii
Urgency of the research. Protestant education in Ukraine and throughout Eastern Europe is gradually overcoming the crisis associated with the bureaucratization of educational processes and individualistic intentions of students. This overcoming was made possible by the discovery of the potential of communitarianism in the postmodern era for spiritual higher education. Communitarianism as a theory of communities assumes that the seminary is an educational and scientific-theological community that serves church communities. The development of communitarianism in today's theology contributes to a better understanding of the possibilities of collective leadership in teacher communities, seminary leadership communities, boards of trustees, and student communities. At the same time, the effective transition to a new state of education and upbringing is hampered by a number of problems and contradictions that are a consequence of the peculiarities of the development of collective leadership in Protestant education in the previous 30 years.
Target setting. The application of the provisions of community theology (communitarianism) to the understanding of seminaries as specific educational institutions, to the discovery of new prospects for the development of seminaries in general and the educational process in particular is critical. In the face of these new challenges, the Protestant education of Ukraine was burdened by the contradictions of the implementation of collective leadership, which are due to the peculiarities of the development of theological education in the last 25-30 years. Understanding these contradictions allows for the contextualization of the ideals of postmodern community leadership for Ukrainian Protestantism.
Actual scientific researches and issues analysis. Traditionally, assessments of the development of collective leadership in Protestant education were given from the standpoint of the worldview characteristic of the late modern era, when Ukrainian Protestantism temporarily took the form of hierarchical corporations. Under such conditions, much importance was attached to the characteristics of quantitative growth or decline. This led to the diagnosis of the state of spiritual education as a crisis, which is described in detail in the studies of S. Sannikov, O. Heichenko, O. Turlak, V. Chaplinsky. Attempts to give new impetus to the understanding of spiritual education as part of missionary activity, carried out by P. Penner, had only a limited effect. Only today, after 2014, the main indicators were qualitative indicators in assessing the development of spiritual education and upbringing. All this leads to the transformation of ideas about the prospects for the development of spiritual education and collective leadership in this area.
The research objective. The aim of the study is a comprehensive analysis of the growing awareness of seminar communities of the need for collective (community) leadership at different stages of Protestant education in the post-Soviet context, changing the forms of collective leadership, filling the content of such a formal structure as a board of trustees these contradictions.
The statement of basic materials. The emergence of Baptist seminaries in Ukraine was influenced by Western churches or missions and in some cases by the Ukrainian diaspora, which had lived outside Ukraine for a long time. The decisive influence was exerted by representatives of churches, educational institutions and Christian universities in the United States. Seminaries went through a number of stages of their own development, during which the forms of collective leadership changed. The first stage is the emergence of seminaries and the harmonization of seminars to unified standards. In the first stage, immediately after the seminary was established, they had very friendly relations with local churches, the programs were very flexible and responded to the needs of the churches. Church leaders saw these initiatives as part of church ministry. The second stage is the extensive development of seminaries, by which the author means the involvement of additional resources in the work of seminaries and the growth of seminaries, associated with the number of students, and for some seminaries - the opening of branches or field programs. This type of growth was also due to the fact that seminaries began to become more independent of national churches, and partnerships with Western organizations became more formalized, which was most often seen in the participation of Western partners in the board of trustees. The third period is a reassessment of the work of seminaries. The beginning of this period is largely related to the global economic crisis of 2007-2008, and its result was the resumption of dialogue between seminaries and churches. The fourth period - institutional changes - is associated with the reaction of the Ukrainian state to the Bologna process and the adoption of the new Law of Ukraine "On Higher Education". The process of preparation for state accreditation and formation of a culture of openness in the national educational environment has begun.
Conclusions. In general, at the stage of the emergence of evangelical seminaries in Ukraine and other countries of the EAAA accreditation association, the influence of Western organizations on the formation of boards of trustees or other governing boards was clear and significant. Most often, it was not direct, but indirect - through national leaders who in the process of learning or work experience encountered such a model of leadership. After 25 years of development and understanding of collegial leadership, we can conclude that boards of trustees have become a natural governing body for theological universities in Ukraine, but they have not taken a proactive position in all educational institutions and not all have become independent and fully national.
Keywords: theological education, forms of theological education, the content of theological education, the social vocation of theology, theories of church and scientific-educational communities.
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