"What was it that stood out for me in Christianity? It was meeting the unique person of Jesus. He’s the supposed hero of the story, but he’s naked and broken on a cross."
Praveen Sethupathy is an Associate Professor of Biomedical Sciences and Director of the Center for Vertebrate Genomics at Cornell University. He previously held an assistant professorship at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. But returning to Cornell was especially meaningful to Praveen. It's his alma mater and (more importantly) his spiritual birthplace.
Seeking Hinduism, finding Jesus
Praveen's parents grew up in India, and he has always been proud of his Indian heritage. In fact, his name is steeped in Hindu lore. When he went to Cornell as an undergraduate, a friend asked him what he believed. Praveen said he was a Hindu. But that question made him realize he didn't actually know that much about what Hindus believed.
So, he started to read.
At first, Praveen read Hindu scripture. He enjoyed what he learned and continued to appreciate the richness of his cultural heritage. But as a budding scientist, he was not content to assume that the religion he'd been raised with held the truth. To collect more data, he started to read other sacred texts.
When he came to the Gospels, Praveen was confused. The Hindu gods were towering super heroes. But here was the hero of the Christian faith being utterly vulnerable. Praveen recalls it like this:
"What was it that stood out for me in Christianity? It was meeting the unique person of Jesus. He’s the supposed hero of the story, but he’s naked and broken on a cross. It seemed the opposite of a hero at first. But what I would learn is that he wasn’t on the cross because he was powerless to stop it. He was on the cross because that’s precisely how he chose to exercise his power – laying his life down solely for the sake of others."
This was both bewildering and attractive to Praveen. He was not convinced at once. But he started to explore the evidence for Christianity - particularly for the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. As a scientist, his aim was not to find incontrovertible proof, but to sift evidence and draw inferences. Praveen's conclusion was that there is compelling historical evidence for the claims of the Gospels. Reflecting on why this mattered to him, he writes:
"Stripped of Christ, Christianity was no more or less compelling to me than any other faith tradition. It was the person of Jesus that made all the difference."
Faith, not culture
Praveen's conversion to Christianity was upsetting for his family. Living as a racial and religious minority in a majority-white, culturally Christian country, Praveen's faith in Jesus felt to them like a rejection of his Indian heritage. But Praveen explained that following Jesus had nothing to do with embracing another culture.
The first Christ-followers came from countries as diverse as Israel, Ethiopia, Turkey, Syria, and Egypt, and while only a small minority of Indians today are Christians, the church in India traces its lineage back more than a thousand years before Christianity came to America. Praveen is gladly passing on his Indian cultural heritage to his kids, while raising them in the knowledge of the Lord, who calls people from every tribe and tongue and nation to Himself.
Work and worship
Praveen's research is focused on the "dark matter" of the human genome - the parts not directly responsible for coding. They were once termed "junk DNA" but thanks to research by scientists like Praveen, we are gradually discovering how important these sections of our genome are. His research has applications for diabetes, dyslipidemia, Crohn's disease and a rare form of liver cancer that particularly affects children.
Praveen sees his work as an integral part of his worship. Its direct application to help those with debilitating disease is one aspect of that worship. But simply understanding more of how the human body works also reveals the glory of the Creator, who knit each of us together in our mother's womb.
Praveen's expertise also enables him to serve those of us who are not biologists and who are seeking to understand the relationship between science and theology. A question Praveen has been getting a lot recently - including from kids at his church - is "Why would God make viruses?"
The Virtue of Viruses
In a recent podcast interview, Praveen explained the vital role viruses play in our global ecosystem. The estimated number of viruses in the world is ten million times more than the estimated number of stars. But the vast majority of the viruses don't infect humans or other animals. They infect bacteria.
We need bacteria for life, Praveen explains. They're primary producers of food for our food chain. But if there was no check on bacteria, they'd take over the world. We're used to thinking of viruses as villains, but the vast majority of viruses aren't making us sick. They're saving our lives!
