HTI Alumni
João Chaves
Assistant Professor of the History of Religion in the Américas at Baylor University
Field of Study: Church History
João B. Chaves is Assistant Professor of the History of Religions in the Américas at Baylor University’s Department of Religion. He specializes in the history of religion in the Américas, U.S. Protestantism’s impact in Latin America, and Latin American/Latinx religious networks in the U.S. He authored several books, including Migrational Religion (Baylor University Press, 2021), The Global Mission of the Jim Crow South (Mercer University Press, 2022), and Remembering Antônia Teixeira (Eerdmans, 2023), co-authored with Dr. Mikeal Parsons. Chaves’ co-edited works include Baptists and the Kingdom of God (Baylor University Press, 2023) with Dr. T. Laine Scales and a manuscript tentatively titled A Place of Their Own: Religion and Immigration Among Latinos in the U.S. (Oxford University Press, under contract) with Lloyd Barba and Silvia Pedraza. His peer-reviewed articles have appeared in several academic journals, such as The International Journal of Latin American Religions, The Journal of Reformed Theology, Political Theology, Review and Expositor, Perspectives in Religious Studies, and Baptist History and Heritage. Beyond academia, Chaves contributed opinion pieces to outlets like the Washington Post and The Christian Century and serves on editorial boards for various publications. Before joining Baylor’s faculty, Chaves held roles at the Hispanic Theological Initiative at Princeton Theological Seminary and Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary.