Mark Chaves is Anne Firor Scott Distinguished Professor of Sociology, and Professor of Religious Studies and Divinity, at Duke University. He holds a joint appointment in Duke Divinity School, the Sociology Department, and the Religious Studies Department. He teaches a course designed specifically for Divinity School students on the social organization of American religion.
Chaves directs the National Congregations Study (NCS), a wide-ranging survey of a nationally representative sample of religious congregations, and the National Survey of Religious Leaders (NSRL), a similarly wide-ranging and nationally representative survey of clergy. The NCS has been conducted four times: 1998, 2006, 2012, and 2018-19. The NSRL was conducted in 2019-2020.
Chaves is the author of American Religion: Contemporary Trends (Princeton University Press, 2011, 2017 (2nd ed.), Congregations in America (Harvard University Press, 2004), Ordaining Women: Culture and Conflict in Religious Organizations (Harvard University Press, 1997), and many articles, mainly on the social organization of religion in the United States. He has chaired the General Social Survey’s Board of Overseers, and he has been President of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion.
