Fazale Rana

Fazale “Fuz” Rana (born February 6, 1963) is an American biochemist, Christian apologist, author, and science lecturer. Since July 2022, he has advanced from the position of vice president to become the president and CEO of Reasons to Believe, a nonprofit organization that promotes day-age forms of old Earth creationism. He writes and speaks extensively about evidence for creation emerging from biochemistry, genetics, human origins, and synthetic biology.

Early life He was born in Ames, Iowa, and raised in West Virginia. He was the older of two sons. Rana’s father was a Punjabi immigrant, a physics professor, Department Chair, and a devout Muslim. His mother was a non-practicing Catholic. Although his father encouraged his sons to adopt a Muslim identity, Rana was not religious growing up.

In high school, Rana was a straight-A student, but had a reputation for being a prankster. As a teenager, his interests were described as “sports, girls, and rock and roll.” As a sophomore in high school, Rana learned Islamic prayers and read the Koran, but he later abandoned the effort after finding it too burdensome. He toyed with universalism in graduate school but gave up that view when he converted to Christianity. He then began his graduate work at Ohio University where he received his PhD in chemistry, with an emphasis in biochemistry, in 1990. He completed his postdoctoral studies in the biophysics of cell membranes

Career Rana began his career by teaching at various academic institutions. Before pursuing apologetics full-time, Rana worked as an R&D scientist at companies such as Procter & Gamble. His wife Amy was teaching biology at a local community college and brought home a variety of creationist literature when the term ended. Rana was curious and flipped through several books, finding them to be “horrible science.” In his opinion, the Christian authors did not appear to understand certain subjects, such as the chemistry of radiometric dating. As Rana located more books on evolution, he came across Hugh Ross’ Creator and the Cosmos. This is the first time he read about Ross’ Progressive Creation Theory and he decided to investigate Ross’ organization, Reasons to Believe. He was later promoted to the Vice President of Research and Apologetics where he began to oversee his fellow staff scholars. Aside from writing multiple books, he has spoken at universities, churches, and conferences worldwide.

In 2011, he stated to NPR "From my viewpoint, a historical Adam and Eve is absolutely central to the truth claims of the Christian faith" and he has questioned the evolution theory. Dr. Fazale Rana presents at Grace Church St. Louis in November 2022

Rana has been interviewed in media outlets such as FOX News, The Christian Broadcasting Network, In the Market with Janet Parshall, and The John Ankerberg Show. He has also written as a contributor for publications such as World Magazine and Salvo Magazine.

Views

Adam and Eve Rana believes that a literal, historical Adam and Eve is central to the truth claims of the Christian faith for many reasons. One is that the Genesis account makes man unique, created in the image of God — not a descendant of lower primates. Second, it tells a story of how evil came into the world, and it's not a story in which God introduced evil through the process of evolution, but one in which Adam and Eve decided to disobey God and eat the forbidden fruit.

Personal life Rana (also known as Fuz) loves blues, southern and country rock music, including artists such as Lynyrd Skynyrd and Marshall Tucker. He supports the Cincinnati Reds and Cincinnati Bengals and enjoys playing fantasy sports and reading Shakespeare – especially the tragedies.

Selected journal articles Rana has published more than 30 articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals, including Biochemistry, Applied Spectroscopy, FEBS Letters, Journal of Microbiological Methods, Journal of Chemical Education and Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres.

Thomas, J. A., & Rana, F. R. (2007). The influence of environmental conditions, lipid composition, and phase behavior on the origin of cell membranes. Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres, 37, 267-285. Rana, F. R., Macias, E. A., Sultany, C. M., Modzrakowski, M. C., & Blazyk, J. (1991). Interactions between magainin 2 and Salmonella typhimurium outer membranes: effect of lipopolysaccharide structure. Biochemistry, 30(24), 5858-5866. Perkins, M. A., Osborne, R., Rana, F. R., Ghassemi, A., & Robinson, M. K. (1999). Comparison of in vitro and in vivo human skin responses to consumer products and ingredients with a range of irritancy potential. Toxicological sciences: an official journal of the Society of Toxicology, 48(2), 218-229. Rana, F. R., & Blazyk, J. (1991). Interactions between the antimicrobial peptide, magainin 2, and Salmonella typhimurium lipopolysaccharides. FEBS letters, 293(1-2), 11-15. Rana, F. R., Mautone, A. J., & Dluhy, R. A. (1993). Surface chemistry of binary mixtures of phospholipids in monolayers. Infrared studies of surface composition at varying surface pressures in a pulmonary surfactant model system. Biochemistry, 32(12), 3169-3177.