The Bible in Contemporaneous Struggles for Basic Legal Freedoms Page 1 of 18 PRINTED FROM OXFORD HANDBOOKS ONLINE (www.oxfordhandbooks.com). © Oxford University Press, 2018. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a title in Oxford Handbooks Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice). Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 25 March 2021 Print Publication Date: Sep 2021 Subject: Religion, Literary and Textual Studies, Religion and Society Online Publication Date: Mar 2021 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190909796.013.56 The Bible in Contemporaneous Struggles for Basic Le gal Freedoms Terence C. Halliday The Oxford Handbook of the Bible in China Edited by K. K. Yeo Abstract and Keywords What are the biblical foundations on which Protestant Christian activist lawyers build not only their practices but their vision of a renewed China? This chapter examines the bibli cal premises and understandings that motivate and sustain Protestant activist lawyers in the pursuit of their legal and religious ideals in an increasingly repressive political con text. Drawing on extensive sociological research on leading rights lawyers between 2009– 2015, the chapter shows how the Bible is integral to their academic and spiritual callings; how they draw on core doctrines of human nature, dignity, equality, freedom, justice, love, fairness, and forgiveness to shape their practices; and the ways that biblical understand ings infuse their pursuit of basic legal freedoms, an open civil society, and a restraint on power in a transformed China. Keywords: legal freedoms, rights lawyers, weiquan, rights defense, rule of law, righteousness, Party state, civil so ciety, legal system, criminal defense law Introduction A disproportionate number of leading rights lawyers in China are Protestant Christians. 1 These weiquan 2 維權 or notable activist lawyers 3 present a sociological puzzle. Why are Christians over-represented in the vanguard of rights lawyers? 4 What beliefs motivate these lawyers to practice what is a risky and often dangerous way to earn a living? More precisely, what are the biblical foundations on which Protestant Christian activist lawyers build not only their practices but also their vision of a renewed China? This set of questions must be contextualized within an interdisciplinary scholarship on the conditions under which legal professions mobilize across time and place 5 for a liberal legal vision of political society that establishes and protects basic legal freedoms. 6 The discovery of an explicitly Christian leading edge for legal rights advocacy in China echoes findings from elsewhere. 7 Drawing on a substantial body of original research, 8 this chap