João B. Chaves, Ph.D.

João B. Chaves is Associate Professor of the History of Religions in the Américas at Baylor University’s Department of Religion and codirector of the Baptist Scholars International Roundtable. He holds a PhD in religion from Baylor University. Chaves specializes in the history of religion in the Américas, the impact of US Protestantism on Latin America, and Latin American/Latinx religious networks in the United States. An award-winning scholar, he has authored several books, including Missões, Raça e Poder (Editora Recriar, 2026), 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’s coedited works include Baptists and the Kingdom of God (Baylor University Press, 2023) with Dr. T. Laine Scales and A Place of Their Own (Oxford University Press, 2027) with Dr. Lloyd Barba and Dr. Silvia Pedraza. His peer-reviewed articles have appeared in several academic journals, such as The International Journal of Latin American Religions, Revista Brasileira de História das Religiões, The Journal of Reformed Theology, Perspectivas: The Journal of the Hispanic Theological Initiative, Political Theology, Review and Expositor, Perspectives in Religious Studies, The South African Baptist Journal of Theology, and Baptist History and Heritage. Beyond academia, Chaves contributed opinion pieces to outlets such as the Washington Post and The Christian Century and serves on the boards of various publications and nonprofit organizations. Throughout his career, Chaves has helped raise and oversee over $9M in grants and gifts.