The words religious leaders use shape how they rationalize President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs. The description of drug users as ‘sinners’, a trope in religious language, is lethal. Using the pragmatism of Richard Rorty, Robert Brandom, and Lynne Tirrell, I examine in this lecture how the term ‘sinner’ functions as a pernicious truth-claim in the culture of militant Christianity and the Philippine drug war. I present how it inspires hermeneutic uptake, redirect discursive focus, and engender
certain social and political actions.