Are we supposed to say "Forgive Me Jesus" in microphone mode to make his eyes light up? Because that literally doesn't work. Then again at the start when you can experiment with words, no matter how I say or pronounce "Forgive" it never registers as "Forgive". It's always registering like "Forged" or "Forget" or "Forked" or retarded stuff like that.
As for the medals, it's possible to get them in non-microphone mode, albeit with retarded amount of extra steps added.
Pretty sure you *must* use microphone to get Bad Words medal though. (Try the words in the title screen first until you get one that actually registers as what you say. It does no good if the game doesn't register it as what you actually said. You'll know if the word is replaced with asterisks that you've hit one that'll work in-game) Then say "Start" to start the game, pick a "sin", and try it out.
Also Atheist in non-microphone mode is simply ridiculous.