D. Michael Lindsay

A sociologist by training, D. Michael Lindsay earned his PhD at Princeton, his MDiv at Princeton Theological Seminary, and a graduate theological degree from Wycliffe Hall at Oxford, all after graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Baylor with a degree in English and Speech. For five years, he was a member of the sociology faculty at Rice University, where his teaching and research received acclaim and awards and his book, — Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite¹, — was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction. Built on interviews with hundreds of senior leaders in government, business, media, and academics, the book stood at the intersection of religion and American identity and proclaimed Lindsay as a careful chronicler of both. 

In 2011, Lindsay carried his scholarship into administration, becoming the eighth president of Gordon College on Boston’s North Shore. Over the next decade, he presided over banner years in fundraising, financial improvement, sponsored research, athletics, campus diversity, and faith expression, supported by a senior cabinet whose members averaged twelve years at the college. 

            During this time, he kept writing. Two of his books, View from the Top², which incorporated insights from his multi-year study of the White House Fellows Program, and Hinge Moments³, drew from a ten-year study of 550 PLATINUM (Public Leaders in America Today, and the Inquiry about their Networks, Upbringings, and Motivations) leaders and structured around the transitions that reshape a life. View from the Top won two awards and has been translated into Chinese and Japanese. 

Lindsay moved to Indiana in 2021 to assume his position as president of Taylor University. There, as his influence became prominent, admissions, athletics and faith incorporated growth profoundly increased. In May 2025, he was one of only three university presidents called before the U.S. Senate’s Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee to testify on the state of American higher education. He argued, characteristically, that the institutions which kept faith and morality at the root of their founding missions were the ones with the most consistent growth. 

Lindsay has lectured on six continents. He has been married for more than twenty-five years to Rebecca Taylor, a teacher and speaker who serves as Taylor University’s Ambassador. They are the proud parents of three daughters —Elizabeth, Caroline, and Emily. 

Notes: 

1. D. Michael Lindsay, Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), https://www.google.com/books/edition/Faith_in_the_Halls_of_Power/ZYfCTQf7dkcC. 
2. D. Michael Lindsay with M. G. Hager, View from the Top: An Inside Look at How People in Power See and Shape the World (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2014), http://viewfromthetopbook.com/. 
3. D. Michael Lindsay, Hinge Moments: Making the Most of Life’s Transitions (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2021), https://www.ivpress.com/hinge-moments.