CarlZunker.com

First Blog Post

Maybe you should listen to me. Maybe you shouldn’t. That’s up to you. You can read the “About” page to see if I meet your criteria for being an acceptable witness, but I would ask that you not let what I have been inform your decision of what God is making out of me. We are continually being molded, so this is a snapshot of me on my journey. If you read it, maybe it will add some things for you to think about.

What I’ve learned, especially from the inside of academia, is that there’s a lot of incentive to speak with authority even when the truth is shaky. People falsify data. They manipulate formulas. If the numbers don’t fit the model, they keep tweaking things until they get the outcome that’s publishable. That’s how it works. The system rewards conclusions, not caution.

I’ve written about that academic world before in my previous project. We had a podcast and website called Leadership Is Hard. That work stayed in the professional lane. But life didn’t. Disability, pain, the death of my mother, the loss of my brother…none of that fits neatly into a leadership model. None of it gets resolved by productivity.

That’s when Christianity made sense in a way that nothing else did.

I’ve never aggressively pushed Christianity (although some friends and family may disagree slightly). But I also won’t pretend I’m neutral. The Bible says we are heralds. Our job is to declare the truth of the One who sent us. I won’t force it on anyone, but I won’t hold back if you ask how I am doing either.

It gets misread sometimes. People think it’s judgment, or ego, or manipulation. But it’s none of those things. I’m not better than anyone else. I know exactly who I’d be without Christ, and I wouldn’t trade places with that man for anything.

There’s a clarity that comes with walking with God. You start to see it in your past. You start to see it in the world around you. You notice the fingerprints.

At the same time, the world pushes the opposite. It sells you the self. It tells you you’re enough. It encourages self-actualization and calls it growth. But it shuts off connection. It shuts off dependence. It shuts off the very questions that lead people to God.

So where does that leave people? From what I’ve seen, they land in one of three places with faith. They stay in the world. In the noise of self-help, other religions, and cultural affirmations. Or they settle into atheism. Or they come home to Christianity.

While this is clearly not exhaustive, it does paint a picture. I don’t say that to elevate myself or my worldview. I say it because Christianity doesn’t operate like anything else. It isn’t a self-help system or a tribal code. It’s not rooted in preference. It’s built on the truth of a Person who lived, died, and rose again.

The core of Christianity is simple. Believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ. Believe in the Holy Spirit. Believe in the resurrection and that Christ died for your sins. Repent of your sins and do your best to follow the teachings of Jesus. That’s the foundation. You don’t have to believe the earth is 6,000 years old or 20 billion years old. You don’t have to fully understand how Noah got all the animals on the ark. You don’t need to have all the answers on evolution. You don’t have to have a perfect worldview on day one. Salvation isn’t about scoring 100 percent on a doctrine quiz.

But atheism comes with a much more rigid set of assumptions. It says the universe came from nothing. That order came from chaos. That the mind is just electrical current. That life came to be on its own. That miracles are impossible. That there is no God and could never be. That’s a long list of absolute claims from people who pride themselves on skepticism.

And the irony is, most Christians I know have actually considered other worldviews. They’ve wrestled. They’ve asked why. Even when the answer is just, “I grew up in it and stayed,” there’s usually some reflection behind it.

A lot of atheists I’ve encountered, especially the younger ones, have never been taught to question what they’ve been handed. They’ve never been discipled in any way. They’ve been handed narratives, not answers. And that’s not entirely their fault. We’ve failed them. We didn’t show up when it mattered.

So now we have to do the work of rebuilding. Fellowship. Discipleship. Community. Truth. That’s what this page is for. That’s what this blog is about. Not to preach down at people, but to think out loud, to walk alongside, and to offer perspective rooted in something real.

The other side is the people who “tried” religion earlier, and “it didn’t work for them.” I just had a tearful discussion with my 9 year old daughter while we were on bended knee praying together. She had accidently hit her brother and cut his lip. She was destroyed, and could not forgive herself. She said she prayed for God to help her, but he hasn’t. That hurt so much. I had to explain a fact I stole from a video I had watched. My son, when he was about 2, had to go to the ER for an illness. They tried to give him an IV 4 or 5 times, and could not find the vein. Finally, they asked me to hold him down. He screamed and cried and promised to be good if we stop hurting him. It gutted me. But, he would not have gotten better if I did what he asked. I told my daughter that sometimes prayer is like that. I told her not to lose heart, and not forget that God is hurting with her.

If I did not have that talk with her, she may start to doubt that prayer works. We dont fully develop in our brains until we are 25 or so, according to neuroscience. Why do we think that going to church when we were 17 will be the same as when we are 35? I have a friend who believes that his experience in church as a youth proves that it doesn’t work for him now. But he has spent the past many years building a wall around himself to make his worldview hold. He would disagree and claim I am the naive one.

“Do not be misled: ‘Bad company corrupts good character.’” 1 Corinthians 15:33 (NIV)

“Walk with the wise and become wise, for a companion of fools suffers harm.” Proverbs 13:20 (NIV)

Full disclosure, according to my secular friend, I am naive. BUT, I have innumerous real friends, who will (and have) drop everything to be at my doorstep in moments (relationships), I have children who are following Godly paths and serve as proof of the fruit of goodness, and above all, I have a rich, overflowing, full relationship with God. I can’t say what my atheist friend would put out for why you should listen to him, but I will say that I attained all good things in my life not through my own efforts, but through His unyielding grace. If you listen to me, I am only going to tell you how I listen to Him, and His is advice you can trust.

If you’re not there yet on your religious journey, that’s okay. I hope you come back. I hope you wrestle with what’s here. And I hope God’s Word starts working on your heart. Scripture says the heart is deceitful above all things (Jeremiah 17:9 (ESV)), and yet we’ve built a whole society on the idea that your heart should be your compass. How can you ever be happy if what you are following is hard wired to lie to you? Is it better to hear a hard truth, or to hear a beautiful lie that you are perfect the way you are? We have to change if we want to be like Him.

What if we turned back to Scripture? What if we treated the Word of God as our compass again?

When I see Christians sharing the Gospel, it’s not because they want power. It’s because they care. Eternity is real. The soul matters. I want you to be saved. I want you to know peace, not because I win if you agree, but because I love you enough to tell the truth.

Atheists that I know often just don’t want people to be bound by superstition. They are not bad people by any stretch of the imagination, but they do not want to submit to anything, especially something they view as farcical. I get that, I’ve seen it, but that is often coming from a place of hurt for themselves. Failed relationships, death, abuse. I understand why some people question “why?” What I don’t understand is how we can try to question God on why bad things happen when we do not include Him in our lives in any other way.

When you strip it all down, you still have to ask: where does morality come from?

If it’s just evolutionary hardware, some ancient and evolving response in the brain, then why should I care about anyone else? Self-sacrifice doesn’t make sense in an evolutionary framework. Not at the level humans live it out.

Look at ants. Some are born to be workers. Some are born to fight. They serve the colony. But we aren’t ants. We have free will. We have conscience. We grow. We become. That kind of possibility only makes sense if we’re made in the image of someone greater. There is an idea of irreducible complexity, that certain biological systems are too complex to have evolved through gradual, step-by-step mutations because all their parts must be present simultaneously for the system to function. On top of that, there is not a lot of evolutionary advantage to the individual from philanthropy. Which caveman would have been the first to give away food they could have died to gather because someone was hungrier than them?

You have to grapple with the idea of truth. Objective, subjective, and ultimate truth. And in the scientific world, we’ve allowed ultimate truth to be replaced by temporary consensus. One day it’s theory, the next it’s law, the year after it’s discarded. But with Jesus, there’s no version update. He is the same.

Nothing in archaeology has ever overturned Scripture. Jesus fulfilled every Old Testament prophecy (I have had some pushback on this point, and people will say it’s debatable, but I do not personally believe they are). Let’s pretend that only 50% of the prophesies are undeniably fulfilled by Jesus. The statistical odds of fulfilling even 50% of the prophesies are numerically beyond anything reason can defend…unless it’s true.

The Earth spins just the right way. The distance from the sun is perfect. Life exists here and nowhere else, as far as we can see. The uniqueness of this world doesn’t scream randomness. It whispers design.

Some people reject God because they don’t like what He asks of them. That’s honest. Because once you believe, your life has to change. You can’t just do what feels good. You have to align with something higher. That doesn’t mean being perfect. But it means surrender. It means trying.

No one is beyond redemption. Not if they repent. Not if they truly give their life to God. I’ve heard stories of people accepting Christ right before death. Executed by the state, guilty of terrible things, but saved. And that offends people. It feels unjust. But the cross has never been fair. It has always been mercy.

Without Christ, we all fall short. Every one of us.

Yes, people have done horrible things in the name of religion. But that’s not the same as doing them in the name of Jesus because we know He never commanded that. Those acts weren’t rooted in Christ. They were rooted in corruption, power, and fear. Don’t confuse the actions themselves with what those actions are claimed in the name of.

A few years ago, there was that story about a trans individual at Gamestop. A male, clearly, who demanded to be called “ma’am.” It went viral. People said, “You can’t call her him. That’s who she was. Not who she is now.”

Well, the same goes for Christians.

If someone is born again, you don’t get to call them what they used to be. Maybe they were a murderer, or a cheater, or an addict. But now they are saved. And that new identity is found in the resurrection. Jesus gave us the gift of new, everlasting life. And its GREAT news, because heaven will be better with every one of us there.

I’m excited moving forward. I’ve gotten more into the Word, more in touch with God, more in tune with my family than I’ve ever been. And it’s honestly glorious. Not because everything is perfect, but because we’re all marching in the same direction, following God. And that unity is beautiful. That unity is unbreakable.

If you’re still not sure whether to listen, I’d argue for you to give it a try. Pray on it. Take it to God. Think about it. See if it helps you.

“Test everything; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil.” 1 Thessalonians 5: 21-22 (ESV).

We tend to surround ourselves with people who either reflect the way we already see the world or the way we want to see the world. But most of us are looking through a lens of self-protection. We’re trying not to be the sucker. We’re trying not to be taken advantage of.

But what if we looked at it differently? What if we stopped hoarding and started helping?

If we have the means, we put money aside so our kids can have it easier than we did. But what if that money could take care of people we love, right now? What if the inheritance we passed on was spiritual, not financial?

Because if I equip my kids with the Word of God, they’ll have everything they need. Research has shown the positive outcomes of Christianity on life, health, and community. If I give them that, I can use my resources to help others.

None of this comes with us. You’ve heard the phrase. A camel through the eye of a needle. It’s all dust.

Jesus says, “And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.” Luke 16:9 (ESV). That means to use worldly resources generously on your friends today, and when this life comes to an end, your investments into people’s lives and into the Kingdom will bear eternal fruit.

Life is precious. Tomorrow isn’t guaranteed.

You don’t want to play chicken with eternity.

Let the Lord speak to you. Move forward. Try to become a better person. And the only real way to do that is to become a more Godly one.

If anyone asked me how to be a better person, I’d say: follow Jesus. That’s the answer. Full stop. From day one.

That’s the path my family and I are trying to stay on, but it is narrow and difficult. That’s what we’re going to explore with this blog and podcast, how to follow Jesus well. How to encourage each other. How to speak with sanity and clarity and truth and love. How to save each other, not with arguments, but with presence and care.

We’re not going to shy away from the hard stuff. Health, sexuality, porn, homeschooling, parental responsibility. I write as a man, because that’s who I am. Men and women are different, and I can’t speak to the challenges that face a female believer, but I have a lot of female voices that will help fill the gap. These will all be a part of the conversations.

And the good news is, we’ll never run out of things to talk about. The Bible is rich. I don’t believe there is enough time to fully grasp it in our lifetimes. Thank God it’s not going anywhere!

If you’ve made it through this first post with me, thank you.

I hope to see you on the next one.

God bless you. May peace be with you.