Finding My Way Back — From Doubt, Through Evidence, to Resurrection

I almost became a “None.” If you’ve ever filled out a form that asks your religious preference and answered “None”—that could’ve been me.

I spent fifteen years in full-time ministry as an associate pastor. But I became disillusioned with church leadership, overwhelmed by my own doubts, the hypocrisy I saw in other Christians, and my personal failures. For a while—if sixteen years counts as “a while”—I was hanging onto church by a thread.

If my wife hadn’t been there during that storm, I’d have been finished. She wasn’t rock solid either, but she held onto faith when mine was crumbling. Truthfully, I stayed mostly to keep our marriage together—not because I still believed.

Then something shifted.

Today, I’m all-in as a Christian—not because of tradition, fear, family pressure, or wishful thinking, but because I’m convinced Jesus Christ actually rose from the dead.

And I don’t mean metaphorically. I mean literally. Physically. Historically.

The evidence for the resurrection is, in my view, so compelling that rejecting it simply makes no sense to me. 

I’m not trying to offend—so please, hear me out.

The Universe Whispers a Name

During my wandering years, I spent a lot of time studying physics, biology, and cosmology—searching for clarity. But many of the answers offered seemed just as thin as the ones I’d left behind.

But when I stopped trying to think like an academic philosopher and started thinking like a detective, I started getting somewhere.

If a detective were examining this evidence—the fine-tuning, the mathematical order, the emergence of consciousness—they wouldn’t dismiss it as coincidence.

They’d assume intent. Because that’s what we do when we see pattern and precision. We ask: Who did this?

The Universe Is Fine-Tuned

The fundamental constants that hold everything together are mind-bogglingly precise—calibrated so perfectly they make a master watchmaker look clumsy. If any of these constants were off by even a hair, the universe would collapse into chaos. There’d be no life. No atoms. Nothing.

It looks suspiciously like someone intelligent is sitting at the controls—someone who knows exactly how to dial it in.

The Laws Are Written

The universe doesn’t just exist—it behaves. It conforms to elegant, discoverable laws that hold across time and space. Gravity, electromagnetism, relativity, quantum mechanics—they don’t just describe reality. They govern it.

It’s as if the cosmos was built to be understood.

Mathematics Was Here Before Us

Math doesn’t behave like something we invented—it behaves like something we discovered. You could erase every human language from existence and never get them back the same way. But math? Math would reappear. It was here before us.

It’s as if we stumbled into a conversation already in progress—and the universe was waiting for us to finally tune in.

Consciousness Woke Up

And then there’s this: the universe didn’t just produce stars and atoms. It produced awareness. Somehow, matter began to think. Neurons began to dream. Dust began to ask where it came from.

That’s not just biology — that’s mystery.

Quantum Mechanics Gets Weird

Particles aren’t tiny billiard balls. They’re waves of probability—potential, until something makes them real.

Reality doesn’t behave like solid ground. It behaves more like a webpage that loads when you click.

Information. Not matter.

These aren’t religious ideas. The phenomena are measurable and well-documented.

But their implications? They point to something stunning:

Reality is fundamentally informational. Not purely physical, the way we once thought.

And if that’s true, then logically, there must be an Informer—someone who authored the information. Because information doesn’t generate itself.

Either someone set those finely tuned constants… or they set themselves.

Either someone wrote the math… or math wrote itself.

Either something observed the quantum wave… or nothing is real.

That’s the uncomfortable fork in the road.

And it makes anything—even miracles—entirely possible.

A Piece of Ancient Cloth

Then I looked at the Shroud of Turin. I’d always been curious, but I thought it unwise to hang my faith on one artifact. Still, the more I studied, the harder it became to ignore.

There is an image on the cloth of an anatomically correct man who’s been crucified. There are nail wounds in the wrists and feet, scourge marks, and a spear wound in the side. He wears a crown of thorns.

But here’s the kicker: the image is only three microns deep—about a tenth the thickness of a human hair.

It has no brush strokes, no pigments, no dyes.

It appears as a photographic negative—centuries before photography.

And it somehow encodes 3D spatial information.

That’s not art. That’s something else entirely.

Whatever formed that image defies explanation, yet it’s grounded in tangible, testable details too. The blood on the cloth is real human blood, consistent with trauma. There are traces of pollen from Jerusalem. And traces of dirt on the nose, knees, and feet—exactly where you’d expect it on someone who had fallen.

Here’s something fascinating: the image surrounds the blood. It doesn’t go under it.

Not only is that scientifically baffling—it’s spiritually suggestive.

I’ve looked at the arguments against it, including the 1988 carbon dating that labeled it medieval. But that testing has been seriously challenged. The sample was likely taken from a repaired corner—stitched with newer threads after fire damage—which contaminated the result.

And here’s where it gets interesting:

If this were a forgery, it’s the strangest forgery in history.

Think like a detective. A 14th-century forger is trying to impress medieval pilgrims—win credibility, maybe make some money. So why would they:

• Embed microscopic limestone dust from Jerusalem—something no one could detect for 600 years?

• Include pollen from Middle Eastern plants that wouldn’t be identifiable until modern palynology?

• Create an image that looks unimpressive to the naked eye but reveals its brilliance only as a photographic negative?

That’s not how forgeries work. That’s how authentic artifacts work.

A forger wants to impress their own time.

But the Shroud only impresses ours.

At its core, there are only two explanations: it’s either a forgery or it’s a miracle.

And given all the data, I simply can’t believe it’s a forgery.

So if you think it’s fake, please: show me how a 14th-century artist created an image we still can’t replicate today—an image with properties no one even understood until the 20th century.

I’m listening.

The Deeper Truth

If the universe is informational, and if the Shroud is authentic, then something astounding has happened: God didn’t just create the universe—He entered it.

He suffered. 

He died.

The cross isn’t about an angry God punishing an innocent substitute. It’s about a loving God taking responsibility for His creation—even for what went wrong—and healing it from the inside, at the cost of His own life.

The Lens We Use

I’ve been on both sides of this—inside the church and on the edge of walking away.

And here’s what I’ve learned: Worldview is a lens. Not just for skeptics. Not just for believers. For everyone.

Once you get locked into a way of seeing the world, it becomes incredibly hard to see anything else. You don’t just interpret the evidence—you filter it. You don’t just ask questions—you protect assumptions.

And the more invested you are in your worldview, the harder it is to imagine being wrong.

That’s true of the devout. It’s true of the secular. It’s true of me. (But I’m working on it.)

We like to think we’re open-minded. But most of us are just defending the walls we’ve already built.

That’s why I don’t expect everyone to agree with me. But I do hope they’ll look.

Not just at the arguments they’ve already dismissed, but at the ones they’ve never really faced.

Because if the universe really is designed… And if Jesus really did rise from the dead… Then maybe the problem isn’t the evidence. Maybe it’s the lens we’re using to look at it.

What Really Matters

If the evidence we’re examining turns out to be what it looks like, it won’t solve every theological mystery. It won’t tell me which denomination is right. It won’t explain biblical tensions, real or apparent.

And for now, we’re not even opening the abundant historical testimony of first-century eyewitnesses—people who died rather than deny their testimony—the rapid spread, explosive growth, or enduring duration of their movement.

I’m not a Christian because my theology is perfect.

I’m not a Christian because my church has it all figured out.

I’m a Christian because I trust in the grace bestowed by the One who rose from the dead.

Historically.

In reality.

Jesus Christ.

His resurrection is precisely the evidence I need to know God loves me and has me covered. Everything else is secondary.

The Resurrection Either Happened or It Didn’t

If it didn’t—move on.

But if it did?

Then the tomb is empty.

The grave is defeated.

And God is not far away.

My Challenge to You

The mainstream still calls the Shroud a medieval forgery. But press deeper. Examine the physical data—no speculation, just evidence—and tell me how that image was created by anyone, anywhere.

Think like a detective.

You’re staring at a universe with:

• Physical constants calibrated to mind-bending precision

• Mathematical laws that existed before minds

• Consciousness emerging from unconscious matter

• Quantum behavior that responds to observation

• And a burial cloth with properties no one could have faked—and no one even understood until centuries later

You gather the evidence, write the report, and walk into the chief’s office.

He asks, “So what’s your conclusion?”

And you say:

“We ruled out design.Because… maybe it all just emerged.

Or maybe there are infinite universes we can’t observe.

Or maybe it’s just a brute fact.

Or maybe consciousness just… happened.

Or maybe we’re in a simulation.

Or maybe… we got lucky.”

That’s the report?

That’s what you’re going with?

Because if you’re a detective, and you’ve got fingerprints, motive, opportunity, and a signed confession—but you throw it all out because “maybe the wind did it?”—you’re not doing your job.

You’re protecting a narrative.

So here’s my challenge:

If you can explain all of this—fine-tuning, consciousness, quantum weirdness, and the Shroud—with that list of maybes, I’m still listening.

But if not, then maybe it’s time to consider a different story.

A story where the universe was spoken into being.

Where information has an Author.

Where the Designer didn’t just write the code—He entered the simulation.

He suffered.

He died.

And He rose.

That’s the story I believe. Not because I need it to be true, but because the evidence led me here.

And honestly?

I think it’s the best news you’ll ever hear.