Doctrine Analysis
Doctrine Analysis
This Language Package’s doctrine_risk_registry.json tracks 40 doctrines across Romans 1–16, each assigned a risk tier that drives Phase 2 review routing.
Risk tier summary
| Tier | Count | Review routing | Example doctrines |
|---|---|---|---|
| Critical | 2 | Human theologian, every occurrence | Deity of Christ, Sonship of Christ |
| High | 10 | Human theologian | Messianic Promise, Lordship of Christ, Grace, Sainthood, Church as God’s People |
| Medium | 22 | Native speaker review | Divine Calling, Faith, Salvation, Adoption, Sanctification |
| Low | 6 | Automated review only | Gospel, Apostleship, Humanity of Christ, Peace with God, Thanksgiving, Mutual Edification |
Why the risk profile differs from Hindi
Hindi’s Critical/High tier clusters around doctrines with a ready-made syncretistic word from an entirely different religious framework (Hinduism). French’s Critical/High tier clusters instead around doctrines split between two internal Christian traditions (Catholic and Reformed) or narrowed by a strong institutional/clerical default reading — a materially different, generally lower-severity risk, which is reflected in French having only 12 doctrines requiring theologian review compared to Hindi’s 30.
Review routing rationale
Critical and High risk doctrines (12 of 40) require mandatory human theologian review because only a theologically trained reviewer can reliably judge whether a fluent French rendering has quietly resolved a live Catholic/Reformed disagreement in a way inconsistent with this curriculum’s Romans exposition. Native speaker review is sufficient for Medium-risk doctrines, where the concern is secular register drift or institutional-default narrowing rather than doctrinal contradiction between traditions.
Critical Risk Doctrines
Deity of Christ
French name: la divinité du Christ
Key terms: son of God, declared son, God over all
Review routing: Human theologian
CRITICAL: co-equal divine nature must not be softened into ‘un homme divinement inspiré’ or ‘un grand prophète’.
Sonship of Christ
French name: la filiation du Christ
Key terms: son of God, his son, God’s son
Review routing: Human theologian
CRITICAL: eternal, unique Sonship, not adoptive or metaphorical sonship as in ordinary human ‘adoption filiale’.
High Risk Doctrines
Assurance of Salvation
French name: l’assurance du salut
Key terms: nothing can separate, who shall separate, no condemnation, more than conquerors
Review routing: Human theologian
Assurance grounded in God’s unchanging character, not the ongoing sacramental-standing anxiety some Catholic catechesis can inadvertently foster.
Church as God’s People
French name: l’Église, peuple de Dieu
Key terms: body of Christ, one body, church, saints, assembly
Review routing: Human theologian
New covenant community, not the institutional ‘Église’ alone; French Protestants historically reserve ‘église’ for the body and ‘temple’ for the building, a distinction worth preserving in teaching.
Effectual Calling
French name: l’appel efficace
Key terms: called, calling, election, chosen
Review routing: Human theologian
God’s sovereign call ensuring the salvation of the called; must not be read through the lens of political ‘élection’ as a competitive or democratic process.
Grace
French name: la grâce
Key terms: grace, unmerited, gift, given freely
Review routing: Human theologian
Catholic sacramental grace (mediated through the sacraments) and Reformed sola gratia are the same French word with different doctrinal freight; must always reinforce ‘apart from merit’.
Lordship of Christ
French name: la seigneurie du Christ
Key terms: lord, lord jesus, jesus is lord
Review routing: Human theologian
Romans 10:9’s confession must not read as one lord among several; ‘Seigneur’ carries feudal-historical resonance in French that can distance the term from a living, exclusive confession.
Messianic Promise
French name: la promesse messianique
Key terms: messiah, christ, anointed, promised
Review routing: Human theologian
The specific Jewish OT concept fulfilled exclusively in Jesus must not be flattened into a generic wise-teacher or moral-exemplar figure, a drift risk in a biblically illiterate secular readership.
Obedience of Faith
French name: l’obéissance de la foi
Key terms: obedience of faith, obedience, faith-produced obedience
Review routing: Human theologian
Obedience flowing from faith, not a Trent-style ‘faith formed by love’ merit condition for standing before God.
Sainthood (Called to be Holy)
French name: la sainteté de tous les croyants
Key terms: saints, holy ones, called to be holy
Review routing: Human theologian
All believers are ‘saints’ in Paul’s sense; French ‘les saints’ overwhelmingly evokes canonized intercessors in ordinary and Catholic usage, a direct risk of narrowing the term to a venerated elite.
Unity of Jews and Gentiles
French name: l’unité des Juifs et des païens
Key terms: Jew and Gentile, no distinction, one body, olive tree
Review routing: Human theologian
Given France’s history and its significant Jewish community, this doctrine requires careful, historically aware handling rather than casual paraphrase.
Universal Scope of the Gospel
French name: la portée universelle de l’Évangile
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; retain unqualified universality against any drift toward cultural or national exceptionalism.
Medium Risk Doctrines
Adoption into God’s Family
French name: l’adoption filiale
Key terms: adoption, spirit of adoption, sons, children of God, abba
Review routing: Native speaker review
Full son-status with complete inheritance rights; bare ‘adoption’ risks the modern legal-procedural sense unless qualified as ‘filiale’.
Christ-Centered Ministry
French name: le ministère centré sur le Christ
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 power, not humanitarian service divorced from the gospel.
Christian Fellowship
French name: la communion fraternelle
Key terms: fellowship, share, participate, community
Review routing: Native speaker review
Bare ‘communion’ is heard first as the Eucharist; must be qualified as ‘fraternelle’ to convey koinonia.
Christian Identity in Christ
French name: l’identité chrétienne en Christ
Key terms: in Christ, in Christ Jesus, united with Christ, dead to sin alive to God
Review routing: Native speaker review
Identity located in union with Christ, not national, cultural, or nominal-Catholic heritage identity.
Davidic Covenant
French name: l’alliance davidique
Key terms: seed of David, David, covenant
Review routing: Native speaker review
Requires OT background explanation for readers with low biblical literacy; ‘semence de David’ is archaic and should be rendered ‘descendance de David’.
Divine Calling
French name: l’appel de Dieu
Key terms: called, calling
Review routing: Native speaker review
Risk of narrowing ‘calling’ to ‘vocation’ in the Catholic clergy/religious-life sense rather than Paul’s calling of every believer.
Evangelism
French name: l’évangélisation
Key terms: preach, proclaim, evangelize, send, how will they hear
Review routing: Native speaker review
In a strongly laïque (secular) public culture, evangelism language must be framed as respectful proclamation and witness, not proselytizing pressure, to avoid alienating a biblically illiterate audience.
Faith
French name: la foi
Key terms: faith, believe, belief, trust
Review routing: Native speaker review
Personal trust in Christ, not generic religious identity or affiliation with ‘la religion’.
Fulfillment of Prophecy
French name: l’accomplissement de la prophétie
Key terms: prophecy, promised, foretold, scriptures say
Review routing: Native speaker review
Linear historical fulfillment (OT to NT); no competing cyclical worldview in French culture, but low OT literacy among biblically unchurched readers requires explicit cross-referencing.
Incarnation
French name: l’incarnation
Key terms: flesh, seed of David, son born, came in flesh
Review routing: Native speaker review
Well-established doctrinal term; the risk is secular flattening via ‘incarner’ (to embody a role), not a competing religious concept as in Hindi’s avatar.
Inspiration of Scripture
French name: l’inspiration de l’Écriture
Key terms: scriptures, holy scriptures, prophets
Review routing: Native speaker review
Distinguish God-breathed Scripture from a purely literary or historical-critical reading common in secular French academic culture.
Kingdom Mission
French name: la mission du Royaume
Key terms: kingdom of God, righteousness peace and joy, advance the kingdom
Review routing: Native speaker review
God’s reign advancing through the gospel, not a political or cultural project.
Mission to the Nations
French name: la mission auprès des nations
Key terms: nations, gentiles, all peoples, to the ends of the earth
Review routing: Native speaker review
France’s colonial missionary history means ‘mission’ carries live postcolonial critique; frame as gospel proclamation, not cultural conquest.
Power of God for Salvation
French name: la puissance de Dieu pour le salut
Key terms: power of God, God’s power
Review routing: Native speaker review
‘Puissance’, not the weaker ‘force’, to preserve sovereign capability.
Prayer and Intercession
French name: la prière et l’intercession
Key terms: prayer, intercession, pray, groan, spirit intercedes
Review routing: Native speaker review
Direct access to God in Christ’s name; must be distinguished from the Catholic devotional practice of intercession of the saints.
Providence
French name: la providence
Key terms: all things work together, God works, foreknew, predestined, called, justified, glorified
Review routing: Native speaker review
Personal, purposive divine care; Enlightenment-era deist usage of ‘la Providence’ in French risks an impersonal-force reading of Romans 8:28.
Resurrection of Christ
French name: la résurrection du Christ
Key terms: raised, resurrection, from the dead, raised from death
Review routing: Native speaker review
Bodily, historical, once-for-all event. Chief risk is secular naturalism reading ‘résurrection’ as metaphorical renewal rather than a historical claim.
Salvation
French name: le salut
Key terms: salvation, saved, save, deliverance
Review routing: Native speaker review
Reconciliation with a personal God through Christ; must not imply salvation is mediated only through institutional membership.
Sanctification
French name: la sanctification
Key terms: sanctification, holiness, set apart, holy living
Review routing: Native speaker review
The Spirit’s ongoing work of making believers holy; low risk of ritual-purification confusion in French, unlike Hindi’s shuddhi concern.
Separation unto God’s Service
French name: la mise à part pour le service de Dieu
Key terms: set apart, separated, holy
Review routing: Native speaker review
Must not collapse into monastic withdrawal from the world; biblical separation is devotion to God while remaining engaged in ordinary life.
Spiritual Gifts
French name: les dons spirituels
Key terms: spiritual gift, gift, grace gift, measure of faith
Review routing: Native speaker review
Charismatic Catholic renewal and cessationist-leaning Reformed streams read this vocabulary differently; keep gifts explicitly Spirit-given, not natural talent.
Universal Human Accountability
French name: la responsabilité universelle de l’humanité
Key terms: all have sinned, no one is righteous, no distinction, all are accountable
Review routing: Native speaker review
Universal guilt before God; watch for colloquial trivialization of ‘péché’ softening the force of ‘all have sinned’.
Low Risk Doctrines
Apostleship
French name: l’apostolat
Key terms: apostle
Review routing: Automated review
Stable, established term; minimal risk of reduction to a generic teacher role.
Gospel
French name: l’Évangile
Key terms: gospel, good news
Review routing: Automated review
Stable term shared across Catholic and Protestant French Bibles; the term itself is not disputed, though biblical illiteracy in a secularizing France means the content of ‘the gospel’ can no longer be assumed as common knowledge.
Humanity of Christ
French name: l’humanité du Christ
Key terms: born of the seed of David, flesh, human
Review routing: Automated review
Real physical human nature; no competing illusionist worldview in French culture.
Mutual Edification
French name: l’édification mutuelle
Key terms: build up, edify, encourage one another, strengthen
Review routing: Automated review
Building one another up in faith; no significant doctrinal risk.
Peace with God
French name: la paix avec Dieu
Key terms: peace with God, peace, peace through justification
Review routing: Automated review
Relational, covenantal peace through justification, not psychological calm.
Thanksgiving
French name: l’action de grâce
Key terms: thanksgiving, give thanks, grateful, thank God
Review routing: Automated review
Standard term; minor overlap with the Eucharistic ‘action de grâce’ in Catholic liturgy.
Referenced passages