Chaves, Mark

Biography

Professor Chaves specializes in the sociology of religion and is professor of sociology, religion and divinity at Duke University. Among other projects, he directs the National Congregations Study (NCS), a wide-ranging survey of a nationally representative sample of religious congregations. Results from the 1998 NCS have informed debates about the Bush Administration’s faith-based initiative, and they have helped us to better understand many aspects of congregational life in the United States.

He is the author of Congregations in America (Harvard, 2004), Ordaining Women: Culture and Conflict in Religious Organizations (Harvard, 1997) and many articles, mainly on the social organization of religion in the United States. He currently is President-elect of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion.

Professor Chaves, who arrived at Duke in July, 2007 teaches sociology of religion at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. He also teaches a course specifically designed for Divinity School students on the social organization of American religion. The Divinity School course is designed with this guiding question in mind: What should current and future clergy know about how social context influences religion, about how social relations infuse religion, about how organizational dynamics channel religion, and about how religion has shaped, and continues to shape, the social, cultural and organizational landscape of the United States?

Please see his Department of Sociology home page for more information about his teaching and research.