A Sin Forgiven

Abstract

Christian education teaches that religion liberates people. It gives them hope and a chance to transcend their tarnished past, be forgiven and be reborn. And yet this paper shows how religious doctrines have created feelings of inadequacy and inferiority in a woman. Unlike the teachings of Christ that challenged the hypocrisy of the status quo and helped restore self-respect, doctrines have evolved to discriminate and punish those who have gone astray.
This paper presents how a woman made sense of her realities and yet felt a long and deep sense of guilt as she knew she was not living up to what her family and her religion expected of her. In a country like the Philippines, these institutions are more often than not, intertwined.
In this particular case, even if her physical world seemed well, her personal circumstances did not go with her personal understanding of her God and her Church, and she fell short of her own and society’s expectations. This alienated her from a community that should have been accepting, comforting and forgiving. This paper seems to suggest that as religion illuminates one's shortcomings, its own set of principles create boundaries that divide, judge and label those who do not achieve a certain level of morality.