Description

In this seminar, I will present my Law & Religious Market theory as an original perspective to critically examining the normative considerations associated with laws/policies affecting religion. The theory draws on the religious economic model, an interdisciplinary approach to religion that analyzes the success and failure of religion through individual decisions on religious matters by religious adherents and religious leaders. Building on this insight on the interactive and competitive dynamics within and between different religions, the theory recognizes that the contours of religious competition are profoundly shaped by the law and other state instruments, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Thus, the theory argues that legal discourse cannot hide behind a veil of religious neutrality and must confront the conversation regarding what sort of religious competition – and the consequent winner in the religious market – should be fostered by the state. As illustration of the theory’s novel factual and normative contributions, I utilize the case study application of China to argue that although the current legal regime is excessively involved in heavy-handed interventions driven by compulsive concerns for political control, the conscious differentiation of religions based on their practical impact on society—not their theological content —is the necessary and appropriate inquiry that should be preserved in any actual reform. In addition, I argue that even if a religious free market is the normative goal of reform, several of the current restrictions on religious activities are useful for moderating religious competition during the transition from the relatively infant religious market of China.

About The Speaker
Chen Jianlin is an Assistant Professor of Law in the University of Hong Kong. Jianlin grew up in Singapore and Taiwan. He obtained his LLB from National University of Singapore, and his LLM and JSD from the University of Chicago. He is qualified to practice in Singapore and New York. Bilingual in English and Chinese, Dr Chen Jianlin publishes widely in law journals such as Columbia Journal of Asian Law, Law & Social Inquiry, Oxford Journal of Law and Religion, ??????, and has a monograph forthcoming with Cambridge University Press. His publications’ seemingly diverse subject matters of corporate law, securities regulations, insurance law, government procurement, natural resources management, historical conservation law, eminent domain, tax law, culture wars, law & religion is united by his research agenda of drawing on a combination of comparative perspectives and economic analysis to critically examine the unarticulated jurisprudential assumptions inherent in many areas of legal discourse. He teaches Economic Analysis of Law, Commercial Law, and Legal Scholarship (i.e., Dissertation; Guided Research), and previously taught Business Associations, and Contract Law.