Rev. Lindner is a Presbyterian minister and the Deputy General Secretary for Research and Program Planning of the National Council of Churches of Christ (NCCC). She is editor of the Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches. As the former director of the NCCC's Child Advocacy Office, Lindner founded the Ecumenical Child Care Network which served 18,000 preschool programs housed in churches of all denominations nationwide. She has served as co-director of the Child and Family Justice Project of the NCCC and Special Consultant to the Middle East Council of Churches and United Presbyterian Church in the U.S., Beirut, Lebanon. She earned her M.Div. degree from McCormick Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. in Church History from Union Theological Seminary (New York). She has taught and lectured on the history of ecumenism, ministry, child advocacy, and church/state relations, and is an author of Our National Policy of Child Carelessness, Women and Church, and Still In But Out as well as numerous other publications.