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 (6): Incarnation, Deity of Christ, Sonship of Christ, Resurrection of Christ, Salvation, and Prayer and Intercession. All six require human theologian review for every occurrence, because each has a fluent, culturally weighty Buddhist, folk-religious, or ancestor-veneration substitute that inverts the doctrine.
- High (13): doctrines including Grace, Adoption, Sainthood, Lordship of Christ, and Universal Human Accountability, where mistranslation creates serious theological confusion even if it doesn’t outright invert the doctrine.
- Medium (18): doctrines like Gospel, Faith, Sanctification, 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 Prayer and Intercession is uniquely dangerous in Vietnamese
Unlike this Language Package’s other languages, where the highest-risk substitute is a religious concept practiced with some regularity, thờ cúng tổ tiên (ancestor veneration, including petitioning the dead) is observed across religious lines in Vietnam and reinforced at every family death anniversary and Tết celebration. This makes Prayer and Intercession the doctrine most likely to be quietly reinterpreted through an extremely familiar, emotionally significant lens without anyone noticing a translation problem.
Why Resurrection and Salvation are both Critical, not just one
Most of this Language Package’s other Buddhist-influenced languages treat resurrection and salvation as a linked pair of risks stemming from the same rebirth cosmology. Vietnamese specifically has two distinct, equally fluent competing words (đầu thai/luân hồi for rebirth, giải thoát for liberation) rather than one overlapping concept, meaning both doctrines need independent, equally rigorous enforcement rather than being treated as a single combined risk.
Review routing summary
19 of 40 doctrines (all Critical and High) route to mandatory human theologian review; 18 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
Vietnamese name: Thần Tính của Đấng Christ
Key terms: son of God, declared son, God over all
Review routing: Human theologian
CRITICAL: Co-equal, eternal divine nature; not a deified historical hero (as venerated at folk temples) or an enlightened teacher.
Incarnation
Vietnamese name: Sự Nhập Thể
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 hóa thân, the Buddhist concept of a bodhisattva’s or deity’s manifestation into a body, understood as one instance among many possible manifestations.
Prayer and Intercession
Vietnamese name: Sự Cầu Nguyện và Cầu Thay
Key terms: prayer, intercession, pray, groan, spirit intercedes
Review routing: Human theologian
CRITICAL: Never modeled on cầu xin tổ tiên (petitioning deceased ancestors for blessing at the family altar), a central and frequent Vietnamese practice. Every occurrence needs a teaching note distinguishing Christ’s and the Spirit’s present intercession from petitioning a departed family member.
Resurrection of Christ
Vietnamese name: Sự Sống Lại của Đấng Christ
Key terms: raised, resurrection, from the dead, raised from death
Review routing: Human theologian
CRITICAL: Bodily, historical, once-for-all resurrection. Sự sống lại, never đầu thai/luân hồi (rebirth into the cycle of samsara, central to Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist cosmology).
Salvation
Vietnamese name: Sự Cứu Rỗi
Key terms: salvation, saved, save, deliverance
Review routing: Human theologian
CRITICAL: Never sự giải thoát (liberation from the cycle of rebirth, the central Buddhist soteriological goal). Salvation is reconciliation with a personal God through Christ’s finished work.
Sonship of Christ
Vietnamese name: Địa Vị Con của Đấng Christ
Key terms: son of God, his son, God’s son
Review routing: Human theologian
CRITICAL: Eternal, unique Sonship, not a title claimed by a deified ancestor or folk-hero spirit.
High Risk Doctrines
Adoption into God’s Family
Vietnamese name: Sự Làm Con Nuôi trong Gia Đình Đức Chúa Trời
Key terms: adoption, spirit of adoption, sons, children of God, abba
Review routing: Human theologian
Because Vietnamese family relationships are strongly shaped by Confucian filial duty (hiếu), this doctrine needs explicit framing that sonship here is grounded in grace and intimacy, not primarily hierarchical obligation.
Assurance of Salvation
Vietnamese name: Sự Chắc Chắn của Sự Cứu Rỗi
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 karmic outcome or on maintaining ancestor-veneration obligations.
Christian Identity in Christ
Vietnamese name: Danh Tính của Cơ Đốc Nhân trong Đấng Christ
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 ancestral lineage, family religious obligation, or accumulated merit.
Grace
Vietnamese name: Ân Điển
Key terms: grace, unmerited, gift, given freely
Review routing: Human theologian
Unmerited favor must be distinguished from phước đức/công đức (Buddhist accumulated merit) and ơn nghĩa (a Confucian-style favor creating a reciprocal debt).
Humanity of Christ
Vietnamese name: Nhân Tính của Đấng Christ
Key terms: born of the seed of David, flesh, human
Review routing: Human theologian
Christ’s humanity was fully real physical existence, not a temporary manifestation as in stories of deities or bodhisattvas appearing in human form.
Inspiration of Scripture
Vietnamese name: Sự Soi Dẫn của Kinh Thánh
Key terms: scriptures, holy scriptures, prophets
Review routing: Human theologian
Distinguish God-breathed Scripture, given through chosen human authors, from Buddhist sutras transmitted through enlightened teachers’ insight, and from Confucian classics transmitted through sage tradition.
Lordship of Christ
Vietnamese name: Quyền Làm Chúa của Đấng Christ
Key terms: lord, lord jesus, jesus is lord
Review routing: Human theologian
Romans 10:9’s confession is the salvation-defining statement. Exclusive, supreme Lordship, distinguished from generic respectful address.
Messianic Promise
Vietnamese name: Lời Hứa về Đấng Mê-si-a
Key terms: messiah, christ, anointed, promised
Review routing: Human theologian
Vietnamese religious tradition has no rival messianic figure; teaching should connect this term to its OT roots rather than guard against a competing concept.
Obedience of Faith
Vietnamese name: Sự Vâng Phục của Đức Tin
Key terms: obedience of faith, obedience, faith-produced obedience
Review routing: Human theologian
Obedience flowing from faith, not đạo hiếu (Confucian filial duty, obedience owed by hierarchical role).
Sainthood (Called to be Holy)
Vietnamese name: Sự Kêu Gọi Nên Thánh Đồ
Key terms: saints, holy ones, called to be holy
Review routing: Human theologian
All believers are saints; not a class of deified historical heroes (như Thánh Trần) worshipped at folk temples (đền).
Separation unto God’s Service
Vietnamese name: Sự Biệt Riêng để Hầu Việc Đức Chúa Trời
Key terms: set apart, separated, holy
Review routing: Human theologian
Must not be confused with entering monastic Buddhist life (xuất gia) as the primary model of devoted service; biblical separation is devoted service to God within ordinary life.
Universal Human Accountability
Vietnamese name: Trách Nhiệm của Mọi Người trước Đức Chúa Trời
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; must be retained without softening into a graded karmic or ancestral-merit scale.
Universal Scope of the Gospel
Vietnamese name: Phạm Vi Phổ Quát của Tin Lành
Key terms: everyone who believes, all who call, no distinction, Jew and Gentile
Review routing: Human theologian
No ethnic, regional, or ancestral-lineage barrier to the gospel; must retain unqualified universality.
Medium Risk Doctrines
Apostleship
Vietnamese name: Chức Sứ Đồ
Key terms: apostle
Review routing: Native speaker review
Established term with low syncretism risk; comparatively straightforward in Vietnamese Christian usage.
Christ-Centered Ministry
Vietnamese name: Sự Hầu Việc Lấy Đấng Christ Làm Trung Tâm
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 service performed to accumulate merit (công đức).
Church as God’s People
Vietnamese name: Hội Thánh là Dân Sự của Đức Chúa Trời
Key terms: body of Christ, one body, church, saints, assembly
Review routing: Native speaker review
A new-covenant community, not a folk temple (đền) organized around a deified hero or local spirit.
Davidic Covenant
Vietnamese name: Giao Ước với Đa-vít
Key terms: seed of David, David, covenant
Review routing: Native speaker review
Requires OT background teaching; no directly competing folk concept, so risk is primarily unfamiliarity rather than syncretism.
Divine Calling
Vietnamese name: Sự Kêu Gọi của Đức Chúa Trời
Key terms: called, calling
Review routing: Native speaker review
God’s personal call must be distinguished from số phận (fixed fate/destiny), a common folk framing.
Effectual Calling
Vietnamese name: Sự Kêu Gọi Hữu Hiệu
Key terms: called, calling, election, chosen
Review routing: Native speaker review
God’s sovereign call that secures the salvation of the called; not số mệnh (fixed fate) or nghiệp (karma).
Evangelism
Vietnamese name: Sự Truyền Giảng Tin Lành
Key terms: preach, proclaim, evangelize, send, how will they hear
Review routing: Native speaker review
Use language of witness and proclamation; sensitive where family ancestor-veneration obligations make conversion feel like abandoning family duty.
Faith
Vietnamese name: Đức Tin
Key terms: faith, believe, belief, trust
Review routing: Native speaker review
Personal trust in Christ; well-established term with comparatively low ambiguity risk.
Fulfillment of Prophecy
Vietnamese name: Sự Ứng Nghiệm Lời Tiên Tri
Key terms: prophecy, promised, foretold, scriptures say
Review routing: Native speaker review
Linear, one-time historical fulfillment (OT to NT), not the cyclical time-frame of Buddhist cosmology.
Gospel
Vietnamese name: Tin Lành
Key terms: gospel, good news
Review routing: Native speaker review
Well established as both the theological term and the common Vietnamese name for Protestantism; must still be anchored to the specific proclamation of salvation through Christ.
Kingdom Mission
Vietnamese name: Sứ Mệnh của Nước Đức Chúa Trời
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 or ancestral-lineage project.
Mission to the Nations
Vietnamese name: Sứ Mệnh cho Muôn Dân
Key terms: nations, gentiles, all peoples, to the ends of the earth
Review routing: Native speaker review
Kept proclamation-focused rather than borrowing institutional religious-propagation language.
Peace with God
Vietnamese name: Sự Bình An với Đức Chúa Trời
Key terms: peace with God, peace, peace through justification
Review routing: Native speaker review
Relational, covenantal peace secured through justification, not the inner calm sought through Buddhist meditation practice.
Power of God for Salvation
Vietnamese name: Quyền Năng của Đức Chúa Trời để Cứu Rỗi
Key terms: power of God, God’s power
Review routing: Native speaker review
God’s own power to save; well-established term with comparatively low syncretism risk.
Providence
Vietnamese name: Sự Quan Phòng của Đức Chúa Trời
Key terms: all things work together, God works, foreknew, predestined, called, justified, glorified
Review routing: Native speaker review
God’s personal, purposive care; never số trời (impersonal fate-dispensing ‘Heaven’) or nghiệp (karma).
Sanctification
Vietnamese name: Sự Nên Thánh
Key terms: sanctification, holiness, set apart, holy living
Review routing: Native speaker review
The Spirit’s ongoing work of making believers holy; well-established term with comparatively low syncretism risk.
Spiritual Gifts
Vietnamese name: Ân Tứ Thuộc Linh
Key terms: spiritual gift, gift, grace gift, measure of faith
Review routing: Native speaker review
Spirit-given enablements for service; well-established term with comparatively low syncretism risk.
Unity of Jews and Gentiles
Vietnamese name: Sự Hiệp Một của Người Do Thái và Dân Ngoại
Key terms: Jew and Gentile, no distinction, one body, olive tree
Review routing: Native speaker review
Requires OT/NT background teaching; comparatively low direct cultural-analogue risk in the Vietnamese context.
Low Risk Doctrines
Christian Fellowship
Vietnamese name: Sự Thông Công của Cơ Đốc Nhân
Key terms: fellowship, share, participate, community
Review routing: Automated review
Shared participation in Christ; minimal doctrinal risk.
Mutual Edification
Vietnamese name: Sự Gây Dựng lẫn Nhau
Key terms: build up, edify, encourage one another, strengthen
Review routing: Automated review
Building one another up in faith; minimal doctrinal risk.
Thanksgiving
Vietnamese name: Sự Cảm Tạ
Key terms: thanksgiving, give thanks, grateful, thank God
Review routing: Automated review
Standard term; minimal doctrinal risk.
Referenced passages