Steve: Professor Dongjae Jun, thank you so much for agreeing to chat to me today.
Dr. Jun: I really do appreciate it. I’ve been looking forward to this interview for a while after we met in Cambridge at a really wonderful conference and we spent, oh, what was it, about three weeks together, I think it was.
Steve: Yes, that was great fun. And, that’s where I heard you talk about some of your work in the sciences, and so I really wanted to hear from you on this very big topic of faith and science because I know it’s something you’re also very interested in.
But before we jump into all of that wonderful stuff, would you mind telling me a bit about your family, your background, and where you live now?
Dr. Jun: By birth I’m Korean, but I moved to the United States in 2009 with my wife, Ran, and my daughter. We then had two boys after moving to Dallas. My daughter is going to college this year, and my two sons are still a bit younger. It’s been great being here and I feel God has been gracious to our family. I also serve at a Korean Community Church in the area nearby.
Steve: That’s fantastic. When I was doing a bit of reading up, I see that you met your wife in church, but it also turns out she’s also a PhD scientist! Is that right?
Dr. Jun: Yes, that’s right. Her major is immunology and we did both a PhD in the same institution in South Korea – it’s called Pohang University of Science Technology. It’s very good in science and engineering. I did my PhD there focussing on Cell Biology, Endocrinology, and Neuroscience.
Steve: What was it that led you to study the sciences and pursue this career?
Dr. Jun: Well, at the very beginning I think it’s related to the kind of questions I had. I really hated all the other subjects I studied. I just don’t like any other subject, but there’s something that sparked my curiosity in science, especially biology.
I had lots of questions, and biology triggered me to continue to ask questions and found great satisfaction in finding answers and good explanations. Biology has a lot of information, complexity, beauty and harmony. There are lots topics and subjects that make me appreciate the beauty, logic and complexity of nature. And for me, science always went beyond my imagination. I found I was always asking if there was something new. And as much as we keep discovering, there is always still something new. I love that about science. It’s what keeps me really interested in the field.
Steve: Can you explain a bit about the work that you are doing now and the area of research that you’re in?
Dr. Jun: Sure. When I did my PhD , I was working on two topics. The first was metabolism, which is a very broad subject, but it basically includes our appetite or food. The other topic I was working on was neuroscience. They are not really separate things, but as I studied both I had to decide which area I should go into after my PhD. I searched for a postdoctoral fellowship in the United States, and I found two high-profile scientists, Dr. Michael Brown and Dr. Joseph Goldstein—they are Nobel laureates who discovered the LDL receptor—and I applied to work with them and I got accepted. That’s how I ended up at UT Southwest Medical Center and I spent almost 15 years there. And then I really delved into the history of cholesterol metabolism, and I was very fortunate because I was part of a great team working on this. I ended up publishing a couple of papers and then I discovered a compound that potentially can be used as a remedy for a very rare disease called Schneider Cornea Dystrophy. I found this research really interesting—it’s a kind of unbiased genetic screening, and it worked very well. Last year it was patented.
Then after 15 years at UT Southwestern I left and then I moved here to Dallas Baptist University, which is a Christian University, which is great because I am also a Christian.
Steve: I want to ask you a little bit more about the science side of things in a moment, but let me touch on your faith as a Christian that you’ve mentioned there.
There is a quote in yout biography about you putting your faith in Jesus which says: “there are no necessary prerequisites. His generous invitation into his love, rather than theology or apologetics, opened my heart and I began my Christian walk”.
Tell me tell me more about that and what does that faith look like for you today?
Dr. Jun: People often talk about unconditional love—because that’s exactly what God offers. He paid everything through Jesus. There’s nothing I can do to earn it—no good works, no payment. I just needed to accept what Christ has done for me by faith. Many think they must earn God’s love to become a Christian, but the truth is, God already paid it all. More and more, I’m coming to understand that the things I did not earn through effort far surpass those I have achieved on my own. “God’s salvation is not free—it is a priceless sacrifice and an undeserved grace that we could never earn.”.
And when I looked around at the world, it wasn’t hard to see how broken and corrupt human nature is. The Bible speaks plainly and seriously about that—and I saw it clearly for myself. When I looked around at all the different kinds of evil in the world, it wasn’t hard for me to admit that those things are real. And in that honesty, I found myself drawn to the Bible—because it didn’t sugarcoat anything. It described reality as it is, and that honesty attracted me.
I used to wonder, What am I supposed to do about this? I thought maybe I had to become someone holy or behave like a saint. But that’s not what Christianity is really about. What I came to understand is that God accepts me as I am, just like the father embraced the prodigal son. That’s why I say I didn’t come to Christ because of theology, rituals, or some deep biblical knowledge. I came because of God’s generous invitation: “Come as you are.”
That simple phrase stayed with me—“Come as you are.” I couldn’t shake it. It disturbed me, in a good way. That small voice kept nudging me toward Christ. And finally, I surrendered. That was the beginning of my walk as a Christian. What it means to “come to Jesus as you are” is that you recognize your self-righteousness is dead. You don’t bring anything to earn His love. You simply come, expecting to start a journey of faith, to be shaped by Him, to resemble Christ, and to grow into the person God is calling you to be.
Steve: I think you articulated that really well because so often we can misunderstand the core message of God’s grace and invitation to all people to come to Him as they are instead of thinking they need to clean themselves up before they can have a relationship with Him.
Okay, so that was the start of the journey then as a Christian. Reading further in your bio it says that you serve as a ‘Mokja’ in your church. What is that—I’m not familiar with the term?
Dr. Jun: Ah, yes. It’s a Korean word which means something like a ‘shepherd’—someone who takes care of sheep or cattle, something like that. I’m basically a small group leader in the church, like a Bible study, but more than that. We eat together and have fellowship, and worship God. We get lots of different people, and some are a bit skeptical about the Bible and have questions, but others have been Christians for a long time.
Steve: That actually brings me on to the next question quite nicely. You mentioned skepticism toward faith there. We also sometimes see a lot of skepticism toward faith in the sciences world. You’re a Christian, and you’re also a professional scientist with many published research papers and even a patent now. But, lots of people would say you can’t have those two things. This idea that science and God just don’t mix. The idea that God is outdated because we have science. How do you respond to that?
Dr. Jun: It’s a very good question, but here’s the thing I think they don’t understand. As a start, I think they probably have the wrong definition of a faith. Faith comes from Latin ‘fides’. That faith is trust or loyalty—something more like that. If you have a child, think about how you might let somebody else take care of your child. It takes trust and loyalty, right? There’s common ground.
Faith is like that common ground. And the common ground between faith in God and science is reason. I love the definition C.S. Lewis gave for faith. He said faith is the art of holding on to things your reason once accepted in spite of changing mood.
So in this context, what is the enemy of a faith? The enemy of faith is emotion or mood, because it’s fluctuating. But faith can be holding on to something that your reason once accepted without, or regardless of your mood and emotion. So I think that’s a really rational definition, and it requires, or must be associated with, fact and evidence. Faith is not religious term. It’s a routine, daily term. And so I think without faith, without evidence, without reason we cannot live even a day.
Steve: I agree, faith is so often very misunderstood, especially in the world of science. In your bio you say that the discoveries in science often shape our worldviews and are linked with our philosophy and theology. How do you see that overlap happening? To me that’s one of the big questions. People think that these are—to use the technical term—non-overlapping magisteria. That the realm of science never meets the realm of theology. But I think what you’re saying here is these these two actually do seem to meet and overlap. Is that right?
Dr. Jun: Yeah, it is so obvious, actually. It’s not that difficult to see. Say you bought a Tesla and then you see that there’s all this complexity going on, but you want to ignore that Elon Musk exists. We don’t want to do that, right? It doesn’t make sense. It’s not rational.
So look what science has discovered; think of something like the DNA sequence. In 1953 Watson and Crick discovered the structure of DNA. We are now living in the era of synthetic biology. Recently one company successfully brought back a type of wolf that has been extinct for a long time. The point is that we’re living in an incredible era, scientifically, a revolutionary era, but still there is the question of where did this incredible information is coming from. Just like the information and intelligence it took to make the Tesla, from the mind of engineers, the same applies to the world around us.
It’s very clear that DNA information cannot be completely explained by Darwinian evolution because evolution only starts after first cell is there. But if you take a closer look at DNA information, it’s all about the sequence. The sequence is information and information always points to a mind.
There’s also the fact that the universe is so fine-tuned from the beginning, pointing out that there must be some cause which must be an immaterial, spaceless and timeless entity. To me this is pointing to God as well.
So as I’ve studied science, philosophy and theology, I see there must be some contact point and I cannot help thinking about the creator—a creative, incorporeal, intelligent being—which is God.
Steve: How would you say your faith influences the motivation for your scientific work then?
Dr. Jun: I believe that God has planned for me to be in this world, and has a plan for me. I think that my task, the homework, whatever you call it, is to know and follow that plan. And then I view this as my vocation. So I think of this vocation as worship—it’s a part of worshipping God.
Nowadays the problem is that many people tend to view worship in a very narrow way. Like it’s only something that happens when you go to a church and join in the praise and prayer. I don’t think that’s what the Bible talks about. Because, if worship is every moment in my life, then whatever I face is part of worship. So I want my vocation to be part of worship. So when I engage my students, even my readings or my thinking, then everything can be material to be utilized to glorify God.
Steve: That’s a great point about worship. It’s every part of life—even sitting in the lab doing research and exploring God’s world.
One last question: what who would you say to a young Christian who’s maybe sitting across the table from you and they’re saying “I’m a Christian, and I want to study in the sciences”, but they’ve heard this idea that if you’re a scientist, you can’t believe in God. What advice would you give to someone like that?
Dr. Jun: I already mentioned that I think science and faith have common ground, which is called reason. Reason is not a human invention. It’s God’s invention. It’s given to us. It’s inscribed in our mind and in our heart, because God allows us to use it to believe in Him rationally and spiritually. It can be utilized to explore material reality, and so we have the same principle at work for both. Think about some of the smartest, greatest scientists in history—people like Copernicus, Galileo Galilei and Newton—they were devout Christians. They studied, and they wanted to know more because they believed the whole of nature was God’s creation. They believed there must be legislator, or a law giver behind it all. I think they are a good example. So science and faith do not conflict.
Think of it this way: imagine you pass somebody riding bicycle, heading westbound. You can describe what kind of bicycle it is, and the direction they’re going, and what speed they’re travelling at. But you never know the intention of the bike rider. But let’s say she stopped and then revealed her will, or intention, to you. Maybe they say “Oh, my sister has arrived in town, so I’m heading to meet her.” They revealed their intention, and then you can understand it. This is a picture of science and faith working together. You knowing her intention does not come into conflict what we observe. It enhances our understanding, but science can’t get us there. So I think science and faith reciprocal—and they both operate with the same principle of reason.
Steve: I agree. There are some things the material sciences are really good at, but other things that it just turn out to be the wrong tool for.
Dr. Jun, thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy schedule to talk about science and faith with me today, I really do appreciate it.
Dr. Jun: Thank you, Steve. Thank you for having me.
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Dr. Jun was born in Seoul, South Korea. After earning a Ph.D. in Cell Biology, Dr. Jun worked at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Texas for 15 years, researching cholesterol metabolism and genetic diseases. During this time, he discovered a potential therapeutic molecule for Schnyder Corneal Dystrophy, which was later patented. He currently holds the position of Associate Professor of Biology. He believes science and faith complement each other in understanding God’s creation. Dr. Jun and his wife, Ran, attend New Song Korean Community Church with their three children, where he serves in various ministries.