Doctrine Analysis
Doctrine Analysis
This curriculum’s doctrine registry tracks 40 doctrines drawn from Romans 1-16, each recorded in full in doctrine_risk_registry.json with its risk tier, key terms, primary passages, and review routing.
Risk distribution
- Critical (8): Messianic Promise, Incarnation, Deity of Christ, Sonship of Christ, Resurrection of Christ, Lordship of Christ, Grace, Salvation. All eight require human theologian review for every occurrence, because each has a fluent, tempting Buddhist or animist substitute that inverts the doctrine.
- High (17): doctrines including Gospel, Divine Calling, Sanctification, Providence, and Universal Human Accountability, where mistranslation creates serious theological confusion even if it doesn’t outright invert the doctrine.
- Medium (12): doctrines like Apostleship, Faith, Adoption, and Church as God’s People, where a native speaker review is sufficient because the risk is reduced clarity rather than doctrinal inversion.
- Low (3): Thanksgiving, Mutual Edification, and Christian Fellowship, cleared for automated review.
Why Grace and Salvation outrank their Hindi-context equivalents
In Theravada Buddhist practice, merit-making is a daily, near-universal act (almsgiving to monks, temple donation, precept observance), arguably more pervasive in ordinary life than karma-talk is in many Hindu contexts. That pervasiveness is why Grace is rated Critical here rather than High — the competing framework isn’t a background belief, it’s an action most readers perform routinely.
Why Faith is Medium rather than High
Burmese has a genuine cognate concept, သဒ္ဓါ (confidence in the Triple Gem built through verified experience), which reduces the risk of blank incomprehension. The remaining risk is narrower: making sure the object of faith is understood as trust in a person’s finished work, not experiential confidence built up through one’s own practice.
Review routing summary
25 of 40 doctrines (all Critical and High) route to mandatory human theologian review; 12 Medium-risk doctrines route to native speaker review; 3 Low-risk doctrines are cleared for automated review only. See doctrine_risk_registry.json’s risk_summary block for the exact counts.
Critical Risk Doctrines
Deity of Christ
Burmese name: ခရစ်တော်၏ဘုရားဇာတိ
Key terms: son of God, declared son, God over all
Review routing: Human theologian
CRITICAL: Co-equal, eternal divine nature; not an enlightened human teacher elevated to a Brahma-realm deity through accumulated merit.
Grace
Burmese name: ကျေးဇူးတော်
Key terms: grace, unmerited, gift, given freely
Review routing: Human theologian
CRITICAL: Grace as unearned favor cuts directly against the daily lay practice of merit-making (ကုသိုလ်ပြုခြင်း) that shapes Burmese Buddhist religious life more pervasively than almost any other single practice. Every occurrence must reinforce ‘apart from merit’.
Incarnation
Burmese name: လူ့ဇာတိခံယူခြင်း
Key terms: flesh, seed of David, son born, came in flesh
Review routing: Human theologian
CRITICAL: The eternal Son permanently taking on human nature, once. Never framed through the Jataka pattern of a Buddha-to-be passing through countless prior lives, nor as a nat spirit descending to possess a person.
Lordship of Christ
Burmese name: ခရစ်တော်၏အရှင်သခင်ဇာတိ
Key terms: lord, lord jesus, jesus is lord
Review routing: Human theologian
CRITICAL: Romans 10:9’s confession is the salvation-defining statement. Exclusive, supreme Lordship, not one respected teacher among the many venerated in Burmese religious life.
Messianic Promise
Burmese name: မေရှိယဆိုင်ရာကတိတော်
Key terms: messiah, christ, anointed, promised
Review routing: Human theologian
CRITICAL: Must not be conflated with Theravada expectation of Metteyya (မိတ္တေယျ), the future Buddha. Messiah is a specific OT promise fulfilled exclusively, once, in Jesus.
Resurrection of Christ
Burmese name: ခရစ်တော်၏ထမြောက်ခြင်း
Key terms: raised, resurrection, from the dead, raised from death
Review routing: Human theologian
CRITICAL: Bodily, historical, once-for-all resurrection. ထမြောက်ခြင်း, never ပဋိသန္ဓေတည်ခြင်း (rebirth into the cycle of samsara). Always flagged for a translator note distinguishing the two.
Salvation
Burmese name: ကယ်တင်ခြင်း
Key terms: salvation, saved, save, deliverance
Review routing: Human theologian
CRITICAL: Never နိဗ္ဗာန်ရောက်ခြင်း (attaining nirvana). Salvation is reconciliation with a personal God through Christ’s finished work, not the self-attained extinguishing of craving and rebirth.
Sonship of Christ
Burmese name: ခရစ်တော်၏သားတော်ဇာတိ
Key terms: son of God, his son, God’s son
Review routing: Human theologian
CRITICAL: Eternal, unique Sonship, not a metaphorical title nor a ranked being within the nat-spirit hierarchy or Brahma cosmology.
High Risk Doctrines
Assurance of Salvation
Burmese name: ကယ်တင်ခြင်း၏သေချာမှု
Key terms: nothing can separate, who shall separate, no condemnation, more than conquerors
Review routing: Human theologian
Assurance rests on God’s unchanging character, not on an uncertain running merit-tally that determines one’s next rebirth.
Christian Identity in Christ
Burmese name: ခရစ်တော်၌ ခရစ်ယာန်အဖြစ်တည်ရှိခြင်း
Key terms: in Christ, in Christ Jesus, united with Christ, dead to sin alive to God
Review routing: Human theologian
Identity is located in union with Christ, not in accumulated merit-standing or ethnic-religious identity as a Buddhist Burman.
Davidic Covenant
Burmese name: ဒါဝိဒ်၏ပဋိညာဉ်
Key terms: seed of David, David, covenant
Review routing: Human theologian
Requires explicit OT background teaching; there is no analogous royal-line covenant concept in Burmese religious tradition.
Divine Calling
Burmese name: ဘုရားသခင်၏ခေါ်တော်မူခြင်း
Key terms: called, calling
Review routing: Human theologian
God’s sovereign call must be distinguished from ကံဇာတာ (fixed karmic destiny) and from a revocable invitation a person can simply decline.
Effectual Calling
Burmese name: အာနုဘော်နှင့်ပြည့်စုံသော ခေါ်တော်မူခြင်း
Key terms: called, calling, election, chosen
Review routing: Human theologian
God’s sovereign call that secures the salvation of the called; not karma-fixed destiny (ကံဇာတာ) or fatalism.
Fulfillment of Prophecy
Burmese name: ပရောဖက်ပြုချက်၏ပြည့်စုံခြင်း
Key terms: prophecy, promised, foretold, scriptures say
Review routing: Human theologian
Linear, one-time historical fulfillment (OT to NT), not the cyclical cosmology of repeating world-ages found in Buddhist cosmology.
Gospel
Burmese name: သတင်းကောင်း
Key terms: gospel, good news
Review routing: Human theologian
Must be distinguished from any generic pleasant announcement. The gospel is the unique proclamation of a Savior who rescues, not a report of good fortune or improved karma.
Humanity of Christ
Burmese name: ခရစ်တော်၏လူ့ဇာတိ
Key terms: born of the seed of David, flesh, human
Review routing: Human theologian
Christ’s humanity was fully real physical existence, not an illusory manifestation as sometimes implied in stories of miraculous or spirit-manifested births in Burmese folk narrative.
Inspiration of Scripture
Burmese name: ကျမ်းစာတော်မြတ်၏ လှုံ့ဆော်မှု
Key terms: scriptures, holy scriptures, prophets
Review routing: Human theologian
Distinguish God-breathed Scripture from the Tipitaka’s authority, which rests on the Buddha’s own enlightened insight rather than a personal God speaking through chosen human authors.
Obedience of Faith
Burmese name: ယုံကြည်ခြင်း၏နာခံမှု
Key terms: obedience of faith, obedience, faith-produced obedience
Review routing: Human theologian
Obedience that flows from faith, not precept-observance (သီလလိုက်နာခြင်း) performed to raise one’s merit standing.
Power of God for Salvation
Burmese name: ကယ်တင်ခြင်းအတွက် ဘုရားသခင်၏တန်ခိုးတော်
Key terms: power of God, God’s power
Review routing: Human theologian
တန်ခိုးတော် required; never အနုဘော်တန်ခိုး, which evokes the supernatural potency ascribed to relics and amulets.
Providence
Burmese name: ဘုရားသခင်၏ကြည့်ရှုစောင့်ရှောက်မှု
Key terms: all things work together, God works, foreknew, predestined, called, justified, glorified
Review routing: Human theologian
God’s personal, purposive care, not ကံ (impersonal karmic cause and effect). Romans 8:28 is especially vulnerable to being read as ‘good karma will work out’.
Sanctification
Burmese name: သန့်ရှင်းခြင်း
Key terms: sanctification, holiness, set apart, holy living
Review routing: Human theologian
The Spirit’s ongoing work of making believers holy, not a self-directed discipline of precept-keeping and meditation practiced to purify one’s own mind.
Separation unto God’s Service
Burmese name: ဘုရားသခင်၏အမှုတော်ဆောင်ရန် ခွဲထားခြင်း
Key terms: set apart, separated, holy
Review routing: Human theologian
Must not be confused with becoming a monk (ရဟန်းပြု) or leaving lay life for a monastery. Biblical separation is devoted service to God while remaining fully in ordinary life and work.
Unity of Jews and Gentiles
Burmese name: ယုဒလူမျိုးနှင့် တစ်ပါးအမျိုးသားတို့၏ စည်းလုံးခြင်း
Key terms: Jew and Gentile, no distinction, one body, olive tree
Review routing: Human theologian
Challenges any notion that being Buddhist and Burman carries inherent religious priority over minority ethnic or religious groups; must be rendered with full theological clarity.
Universal Human Accountability
Burmese name: လူသားအားလုံး၏ တာဝန်ခံမှု
Key terms: all have sinned, no one is righteous, no distinction, all are accountable
Review routing: Human theologian
All humanity stands equally guilty before a personal God, which must be retained without softening into a graded merit-scale where some are simply ‘more advanced’ than others.
Universal Scope of the Gospel
Burmese name: သတင်းကောင်း၏ လူတိုင်းအတွက်ဖြစ်ခြင်း
Key terms: everyone who believes, all who call, no distinction, Jew and Gentile
Review routing: Human theologian
No ethnic or social barrier to the gospel; must retain unqualified universality despite Burma’s own ethnic-majority/minority tensions surrounding Buddhist national identity.
Medium Risk Doctrines
Adoption into God’s Family
Burmese name: ဘုရားသခင်၏အိမ်ထောင်စုတွင် သားအဖြစ်ခံယူခြင်း
Key terms: adoption, spirit of adoption, sons, children of God, abba
Review routing: Native speaker review
Burmese customary adoption is culturally well understood; the emphasis needed is that this sonship is full and permanent, with complete inheritance rights, not a probationary status.
Apostleship
Burmese name: တမန်တော်ဖြစ်ခြင်း
Key terms: apostle
Review routing: Native speaker review
Risk of reducing apostleship to a respected senior-monk (ဆရာတော်) style teaching role rather than a directly commissioned, authoritative sent-one.
Christ-Centered Ministry
Burmese name: ခရစ်တော်ဗဟိုပြု၍ဆောင်ရွက်သော အမှုတော်
Key terms: what Christ has accomplished through me, in Christ Jesus, minister of Christ
Review routing: Native speaker review
Ministry done in Christ’s name and by his power for his glory, not humanitarian merit-work performed to build one’s own kutho.
Church as God’s People
Burmese name: ဘုရားသခင်၏လူစုအဖြစ် အသင်းတော်
Key terms: body of Christ, one body, church, saints, assembly
Review routing: Native speaker review
A new-covenant community, not a monastery-centered religious institution organized around a resident sangha.
Evangelism
Burmese name: သတင်းကောင်းဟောပြောခြင်း
Key terms: preach, proclaim, evangelize, send, how will they hear
Review routing: Native speaker review
Sensitive in a context where conversion from Buddhism carries real social and family cost; use language of witness and proclamation, not confrontational framing.
Faith
Burmese name: ယုံကြည်ခြင်း
Key terms: faith, believe, belief, trust
Review routing: Native speaker review
A cognate concept (သဒ္ဓါ, confidence built through verified experience of the Triple Gem) already exists, which lowers the risk of total incomprehension but requires care that faith is presented as trust in a person, not experiential confidence in a teaching.
Kingdom Mission
Burmese name: နိုင်ငံတော်၏အမှုတော်
Key terms: kingdom of God, righteousness peace and joy, advance the kingdom
Review routing: Native speaker review
God’s reign advancing through gospel proclamation; not a political nainggan or a Buddhist-national religious identity project.
Mission to the Nations
Burmese name: လူမျိုးအပေါင်းတို့အား သာသနာပြုခြင်း
Key terms: nations, gentiles, all peoples, to the ends of the earth
Review routing: Native speaker review
The word သာသနာပြု carries a Buddhist-institutional flavor (propagating the Buddha’s Sasana); native-speaker review should confirm the surrounding context makes clear this is gospel proclamation, not Sasana-style institution-building.
Peace with God
Burmese name: ဘုရားသခင်နှင့်ငြိမ်သက်ခြင်း
Key terms: peace with God, peace, peace through justification
Review routing: Native speaker review
Relational, covenantal peace secured through justification, not the meditative stilling of mental defilements pursued through vipassana practice.
Prayer and Intercession
Burmese name: ဆုတောင်းခြင်းနှင့်အသနားခံခြင်း
Key terms: prayer, intercession, pray, groan, spirit intercedes
Review routing: Native speaker review
Direct access to God in Christ’s name; distinguish from propitiating or petitioning the 37 nats (guardian spirits) for protection or favor.
Sainthood (Called to be Holy)
Burmese name: သန့်ရှင်းသူအဖြစ် ခေါ်တော်မူခြင်း
Key terms: saints, holy ones, called to be holy
Review routing: Native speaker review
All believers are saints; not an ascetic elite comparable to a ရဟန္တာ (arahant) who has personally achieved enlightenment through monastic discipline.
Spiritual Gifts
Burmese name: ဝိညာဉ်ဆုကျေးဇူး
Key terms: spiritual gift, gift, grace gift, measure of faith
Review routing: Native speaker review
Spirit-given enablements for service, not merit-earned or occult powers such as those attributed to weizza (esoteric adept) practice.
Low Risk Doctrines
Christian Fellowship
Burmese name: ခရစ်ယာန်မိတ်သဟာယ
Key terms: fellowship, share, participate, community
Review routing: Automated review
Shared participation in Christ, not merely social association within a monastery-affiliated lay community.
Mutual Edification
Burmese name: အချင်းချင်းတည်ဆောက်ခြင်း
Key terms: build up, edify, encourage one another, strengthen
Review routing: Automated review
Building one another up in faith; minimal doctrinal risk.
Thanksgiving
Burmese name: ကျေးဇူးတင်ခြင်း
Key terms: thanksgiving, give thanks, grateful, thank God
Review routing: Automated review
Standard term; minor risk of collapsing into generic ritual merit-dedication (ကုသိုလ်ရှေးရေး) language.
Referenced passages