Context: The Confederation Report
Host: Steven R. Martins
Language: English
This is The Confederation Report, a weekly analysis of Canadian news and culture from a Biblical worldview.
Excerpt: On August 3rd, 2025, the tallest idol of Lord Ram in North America was unveiled at the Hindu Heritage Center in Mississauga, Ontario. This towering 51-foot statue now stands as a physical symbol of the Hindu religious worldview.
Introduction & Opening Words (00:00-00:34)
Part I: Behold, Lord Ram! (00:34–05:35)
On August 3rd, 2025, the tallest idol of Lord Ram in North America was unveiled at the Hindu Heritage Center in Mississauga, Ontario. This towering 51-foot statue now stands as a physical symbol of the Hindu religious worldview.
Part II: Understanding Hinduism (05:35–10:41)
Hinduism, as a pantheistic system affirming the identity of all reality with the impersonal Brahman, rejects the Creator–creation distinction and objective truth, thereby lacking the necessary metaphysical and moral foundations necessary to make sense of created reality.
Part III: Oneism and Twoism (10:41–15:14)
Hinduism, as an expression of the broader Oneist worldview, asserts that all reality is divine and ultimately one with the impersonal Brahman, thereby erasing the Creator–creation distinction and rendering moral and logical categories illusory, whereas Christianity’s Twoist framework uniquely preserves these distinctions, grounding objective truth, morality, and the coherent understanding of reality in the personal, sovereign Creator.
Did You Know? (15:14–16:15)
In November 2018, the Parliament of the World’s Religions met in Toronto, uniting over 200 faiths under the claim that “all religions are one”—a notion that flatly contradicts the biblical truth that salvation is found exclusively in Jesus Christ and reflects how far Canada has fallen from its once-orthodox Christian foundations.
Recommended Reading (16:15–17:03)
This week’s recommended resource is God, Man, the Bible & Life by Steven R. Martins, a series of lectures in Costa Rica’s national universities defending the Bible’s truth, Christ’s exclusive claims, mankind’s need for God, and God’s goodness amid evil, all grounded in the impossibility of the contrary.
Transcript:
It’s Week 32, and this is The Confederation Report—the flagship weekly podcast of the Cántaro Institute. My name is Steven Martins, and I’ll be your host, bringing you incisive analysis, cultural commentary, and thought-provoking interviews on the issues shaping Canadian life and beyond—all through the lens of a biblical worldview. Because Christ is Lord—over Canada, over culture, over all of life.
Part I: Behold, Lord Ram!
Imagine walking down a busy walkway, and as you turn the corner, you come face to face with a 50-foot statue, an idol, towering over the people. Are you in Canaan? Egypt? Babylon? Or Greece? Have you been transported back in time? After all, we don’t see elaborate idol-statues like the ancients anymore—at least not often—unless you’re trekking through the East or abandoned ruins of antiquity. No, you are not back in time, nor are you in some other part of the world. You’re not even at a museum! You’re in Mississauga, and behold, the Hindu god Lord Ram. This is not a jest. An actual idol, akin to those of old, has been erected for all to see and to worship.
On August 3rd, 2025, the tallest idol of Lord Ram in North America was unveiled at the Hindu Heritage Center in Mississauga, Ontario. This towering 51-foot statue now stands as a physical symbol of the Hindu religious worldview. The event drew over 10,000 attendees, including government officials such as the Minister of Women and Gender Equality, the President of the Treasury Board, and the Minister of International Trade. Also present were interim opposition leader Andrew Scheer, local MPs, and provincial ministers, all of whom lent their support to the event, whether knowingly or not.
The idol’s creation marks the culmination of a four-year project, made possible by the generous donation of an Indo-Canadian business leader. According to the Hindustan Times, this idol represents not only artistic achievement but also a profound spiritual offering to the Hindu community. Standing 51 feet tall—excluding its pedestal and a proposed umbrella-like structure—the idol was fabricated in Delhi and assembled locally in Canada. The founder and head priest of the Hindu Heritage Center proudly stated that the idol embodies “righteousness”—though, of course, this term doesn’t mean what they think it means. Righteousness, biblically speaking, is not achieved through the elevation of idols or religious symbols but through faith in the One true God and His revealed Word. Call it what you may, but the idol of Lord Ram is not a symbol of righteousness; it is the symbol of the pagan resurgence in the West. There is no “All ways lead to God”; there is only Christ, who says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” There is the thesis, and then there is the antithesis, and Hinduism is just another form of the antithesis. But I’ll address that later.
The event’s principal organizer expressed the pride and joy felt by the Hindu community by noting that the idol would soon be visible to passengers arriving at Toronto Pearson International Airport. It is said that as planes descend over the temple, the towering figure of Lord Ram will serve as a prominent reminder of the community’s deep spiritual roots. More accurately, we can say that it serves as a reminder of how far our country has moved away from the Christian religious worldview and, once again, how much paganism has resurfaced and resurged. For us Christians, it stands as a sobering reminder of the persistent idolatries that continue to thrive in a world that rejects the One true God.
As this massive idol stands tall in Mississauga, one cannot ignore the role of religious symbols in public spaces. For the Hindu community in Mississauga, the idol is undoubtedly a symbol of faith, unity, and cultural legacy. For Christians, however, it represents a call to repentance, as we continue to proclaim the exclusive Lordship of Christ in a world increasingly given over to idolatry. Hinduism has approximately 1.2 billion adherents worldwide, that’s 1.2 billion people who are blinded to the lie of Hinduism, not including, of course, those who are blinded by other antithetical religious worldviews. The erection of the idol Lord Ram is a reminder that we need to be faithful in our mission to bear witness of the gospel, disciple one another in the Word of God, and to cultivate a life of worship unto God. The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few. That idol is a testament that the church isn’t doing enough to advance the kingdom of Christ through its gospel proclamation.
Part II: Understanding Hinduism
Okay, I may be presupposing too much when it comes to how much you may know concerning Hinduism, especially in terms of how it contrasts with the Christian religious worldview. Let me give it a go at explaining it:
Hinduism is a complex and multifaceted worldview, and to understand it fully, we have to examine its historic development and its core principles. At its foundation, Hinduism presents a pantheistic view of the universe, encapsulated in the belief that Brahman, the impersonal and all-pervasive god, is everything. Everything—whether living or non-living—shares in the essence of Brahman. This idea that “all is Brahman” and that distinctions between various forms of existence are illusions (maya) is at the heart of Hindu thought. For Hindus, the goal of life is to realize this oneness with Brahman and to escape the cycle of reincarnation, or samsara, through various paths, including meditation, knowledge, and devotion.
Historically, Hinduism has undergone three major phases: the Vedic phase, the Vedantic phase, and the Bhakti phase. The Vedic phase, which began around 1500 BC, was characterized by ritualistic practices and legal requirements carried out by the Brahmin priesthood. It was during this time that the caste system was solidified, with the belief that only the highest caste could hope to break free from samsara. However, this exclusivity led to dissatisfaction and reform movements, which eventually gave rise to the Vedantic phase around 500 BC. The Vedantic phase introduced more mystical and meditative practices, emphasizing personal realization of the Atman–Brahman identity—the idea that one’s individual soul (Atman) is, in fact, inseparable from Brahman.
The Bhakti phase, emerging around 200 BC with texts like the Bhagavad–Gita, shifted the focus to personal devotion to a particular god, often Vishnu or Shiva. In this phase, salvation is sought through devotion (bhakti) rather than strict adherence to a caste or ritual. Let’s turn to the Bhagavad–Gita for an example. The Bhagavad-Gita presents the moral and spiritual dilemmas of the warrior Arjuna, whose struggle is guided by the god Krishna, an incarnation of Vishnu. This devotion offered a more accessible path to salvation, where even those outside the priestly caste could engage in religious practices and find liberation.
Now, despite the philosophical diversity within Hinduism, its core doctrine remains largely the same: the pantheistic belief that Brahman is all and all is Brahman. This worldview rejects the Creator-creation distinction found solely in the thesis, the truth, in the Christian religious worldview. In Hinduism, there is no absolute truth or morality; instead, truth is fluid, subjective, and relative. This leads to the relativistic mindset that underpins much of Eastern thought, including Buddhism. From a biblical perspective, this worldview, this set of presuppositions, is deeply problematic because it undermines the foundation of objective truth and morality that is absolutely necessary for meaningful discourse, ethical behavior, and personal identity.
It goes without saying that the implications of Hinduism’s pantheistic worldview extend beyond metaphysics and into ethics and social structures. For example, in the Bhagavad-Gita, Arjuna is instructed to perform his duty as a warrior, regardless of the morality of his actions. The moral ambiguity presented in Hinduism—where actions are justified based on caste duty and distinctions within reality are dismissed—leads to a breakdown of objective ethics. The notion that everything is divine, including suffering and violence, good and evil, light and darkness, poses severe philosophical problems. It is a worldview that, in theory, denies the existence of true distinctions between right and wrong, creation and Creator, or even between a person and non-living things. This leads to an untenable philosophical framework that is not only deeply at odds with the biblical Christian worldview, which affirms the reality of creation, the existence of absolute truth, and the distinction between the Creator and the created, but is also incapable of making rational sense of created reality. It falls apart on itself as a form of absolute Monism.
Part III: Oneism and Twoism
Hinduism is an expression of the broader worldview of Oneism, which asserts that all is one and all is divine. In this framework, there is no ultimate distinction between Creator and creation; everything—whether a human being, an animal, or an inanimate object—is an extension of the impersonal absolute, Brahman. This pantheistic view (“god is all, and all is god”) treats all apparent differences as maya, illusion, masking the underlying unity of existence.
But by erasing all ultimate distinctions, Hinduism undermines the very foundations of rational thought and moral judgment. If reality is ultimately one, then the difference between true and false, good and evil, just and unjust, is illusory. Logical categories collapse, and morality becomes subjective. Even acts of cruelty or violence can be reinterpreted as expressions of the divine play (lila) of Brahman. Such a worldview cannot offer an objective standard for truth, ethics, or justice, nor can it account for the real, knowable order of the created world.
By contrast, Christianity is the only true Twoist worldview. It affirms the eternal distinction between the Creator and His creation: God is personal, sovereign, and exists independently of the world He made. This Creator–creation distinction provides the necessary grounding for logic, rationality, and moral absolutes. Because God’s character is the ultimate standard of truth and goodness, categories like right and wrong, justice and injustice, are real and binding—not illusory. Christianity alone offers a coherent framework for understanding reality as it is, giving meaning to human dignity, purpose, and moral responsibility.
To better communicate the concept of “One-ism”, I borrow the work of Dr. Peter Jones who outlines the implications of this worldview. Oneism claims that:
- All is One and everything is divine: There is no external god; spirituality is in ourselves and in the universe.
- Humanity is One and everyone shares in the divine power: The idea that if we all unite, we can bring about a new level of happiness and peace.
- Religions are One and each religion has some of the truth: A call for religious pluralism where all beliefs are seen as equally valid and part of the same truth.
- The problem with mankind is that we must remember we are one: Distinctions such as race, culture, or gender are seen as barriers to true unity and spirituality.
- The solution is to look within ourselves to find power and unifying balance: True spirituality comes from experiencing the unity of all things and losing ourselves in the whole.
In contrast to Oneism, Christianity affirms a Twoist framework that upholds the essential distinctions built into reality. Hinduism and other Oneist systems deny these distinctions, collapsing Creator and creation into a single divine essence. But the Christian worldview recognizes the absolute difference between the personal, sovereign Creator and the world He has made. This Creator–creation distinction is the foundation for objective truth, moral order, and meaningful human relationships.
Without such distinctions, as in Oneism, there is no firm ground for defining good and evil or for understanding the true nature of existence. If all is one, then all moral categories dissolve into illusion, even all philosophical categories, and reason itself loses coherence.
Only the Twoist perspective of Christianity provides a consistent and rational framework for interpreting reality. It offers clarity about the nature of God, mankind, and the universe, rooting morality and purpose in the character and will of the Creator. By affirming the Creator–creation distinction, Christianity uniquely makes sense of truth, justice, and purpose in a way that Oneism, with its denial of these essential distinctions, never can.
Did You Know?
In November 2018, the Parliament of the World’s Religions convened in Toronto, bringing together over 200 religious groups from around the world. With participants spanning faiths such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Sikhism, Judaism, New Age, and even lesser-known religions like Daesoon Jinrihoe and Cao Dai, the event showcased the diversity of spiritual beliefs worldwide. What was most striking was the underlying message that “all religions are one,” a view that has persisted since the first Parliament in Chicago in 1893. This message of unity, though appealing to some, contradicts the biblical truth that salvation is found exclusively in Jesus Christ. How can an inclusive view accommodate exclusive views? Canada was once a Christian nation, more orthodox than the United States ever was. Now, we have become apostate, worse off than we ever were.
Recommended Resource
This week’s recommended resource is God, Man, the Bible & Life: The Costa Rica Conference Lectures by Steven R. Martins. Speaking to a mixed audience of Christians, religious pluralists, skeptics and inquirers at the national universities of Costa Rica, the founding director of the Cántaro Institute delivered a series of lectures relating to the truthfulness of the Christian worldview, answering questions: Can we trust the Bible to be God’s infallible and inspired word? How does Jesus’ exclusivist claims measure up against other religious worldviews in our pluralist age? Can man live without the God of Christianity? And how do we reconcile a sovereign and good God with the evil in our world? Altogether Martins’ unifying thesis is that the truthfulness of the Christian worldview is based on the impossibility of the contrary.
Closing Words (11:50-12:30)
Thanks for listening to The Confederation Report, this podcast is brought to you by the Cántaro Institute. Visit our website at cantaroinstitute.org for more information. For books to read on worldview, philosophy, and theology, visit our store at cantaroinstitute.store
We’ll meet again next week.
Documentation & Additional Reading
Hindustan Times (Anirudh Bhattacharyya)
Canada: Tallest idol of Lord Ram inaugurated in North America