Craig J. Hazen is a Professor of Comparative Religion and Christian Apologetics at Biola University and Founder and Director of the Master of Arts Program in Christian Apologetics—the largest and highest ranked program of its kind in the world.  He also directs the Master of Arts Program in Science and Religion at Biola.  For twenty years he has been the editor-in-chief of the philosophy journal, Philosophia Christi, the world’s top-circulating philosophy of religion journal.  He did his doctoral work in the prestigious Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara where he focused on the historical interaction of science, religion, and philosophy.  He is a contributor to a range of scholarly journals and books including Wissenschaft und Religion, To Everyone an Answer, The Apologetics Study Bible, Passionate Conviction, Tough-Minded Christianity, A Mormon in the White House?, The Spiritual Legacy of C.S. Lewis, The Case for Grace. He authored a monograph from the University of Illinois Press entitled The Village Enlightenment in America and wrote the lead essay in a provocative book The New Mormon Challenge that helped open doors for high-level dialogue with key LDS leaders.

Hazen has contributed to three books nominated for Gold Medallion publishing awards and was a feature editorialist for an east coast newspaper focusing on the intersection of Christianity and culture.  His break-out novel titled Five Sacred Crossings has received stellar reviews and was recently published in several other languages. His latest book on prayer, Fearless Prayer: Why We Don’t Ask and Why We Should, is a groundbreaking study of John 15:7 designed to encourage believers through the amazing promise of Jesus found in that passage.

Prof. Hazen holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. in Religious Studies, a B.A. in Biological Sciences, and has studied international law and human rights at the International Institute of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France.  His academic work and research has been recognized with multiple awards for excellence from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Academy of Religion.  For a number of years he taught biology, chemistry, and computer science and ran a comparative animal physiology research lab at the California State University.  He has been a fellow of the University of California, Berkeley’s Bancroft Library, The Intercollegiate Studies Institute, and the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center.  As a graduate instructor at the University of California, Prof. Hazen was nominated three times as teacher of the year and co-taught one of the largest single classes in the University of California system.

At Biola University he was named the winner of the Robert B. Fischer Award for Faculty Excellence, the highest faculty honor.  Prof. Hazen is a very popular and engaging speaker and has spoken at hundreds of universities and churches. He has addressed audiences in North America, Europe, and Asia on religion and science, Christianity among world religions, the evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus, cultural trends in religion, and on prayer.  He is known for his great content, humor, and the way he brings the Scriptures alive through unforgettable story telling. Hazen has lectured in the White House and in the halls of Congress multiple times, and has fielded questions from the Washington DC press corp.  He is also a former co-host of a national radio talk program and is a regular on-camera expert for video and broadcast television.  He became a Christian at age seventeen and has been married to Karen for over thirty-five years.  They live in southern California and have four adult children.