Dr. Richard Hughes has been a member of the Messiah College community since 2006 and serves as Senior Fellow of the Ernest L. Boyer Center. As a Distinguished Professor of Religion, he has taught and/or teaches a survey of Christian history, history of the reformation, religion in American history, a first year seminar entitled Learning to Tell Our Stories, as well as a section of the college's core course, Created and Called for Community. Additionally, he administers "Lilly II," a Lilly Endowment grant to implement the sustaining phase of the "Theological Exploration of Vocation" program at Messiah College. Before coming to Messiah, Dr. Hughes served at Pepperdine University as a Distinguished Professor in the Religion Division and as Director of the Pepperdine University Center for Faith and Learning.
Dr. Hughes has written extensively in a variety of fields. His areas of publication include Christian faith and higher education (The Vocation of a Christian Scholar, 2005, and Models of Christian Higher Education, 1997); the history of the Churches of Christ (Reviving the Ancient Faith: The Story of Churches of Christ in America, 1996 and The American Origins of Churches of Christ, 2002); the restoration ideal (Illusions of Innocence, with Leonard Allen, 1988, and The American Quest for the Primitive Church, 1988); and the religious dimensions of American nationalism (The Myth of Christian America, 2008, and Myths America Lives By, 2003).
