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Abstract

Servant leadership has gained broad currency among Christians of various persuasions. At the same time, surprisingly little consideration is given to cultural assumptions behind servant leadership, particularly to the meaning of service in question. The paper will examine these assumptions in light of Christian tradition as reflected in works of St. Augustine. The paper will argue that, while there are some affinities between traditional Christian spirituality and servant leadership as commonly understood, this should not lead us to conclude that the latter is an outgrowth of the former. While an Augustinian theology of leadership will inevitably have a robust service dimension to it, in order to be authentic this dimension needs to integrate concept of therapy different from the one common in the West, reflect cruciform meaning of service and set within Christian communal praxis.

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