Lindy Backues

Lindy Backues, PhD, is currently the Associate Professor of Business and Leadership at Eastern Mennonite University. He is also a licensed minister of the Mosaic Conference of the Mennonite Church-USA. Prior to coming to EMU, Lindy served for 13 years as Associate Professor of Economic Development at Eastern University and for 18 years in Indonesia as an economic/community development theorist and practitioner. He speaks the Indonesian language fluently.

Lindy’s work has focused on grassroots liberative empowerment methodologies, social justice, cultural exploration, organizational analysis and change, and community development, especially in respect to practical, implemented operations, community involvement, and the establishment of indigenous non-government organizations (NGOs).

In his earlier capacity as a development practitioner for almost twenty years, Lindy served an assortment of grassroots Indonesian NGOs, as principal architect and modifier for internal program operations, as chief design consultant for financial and management control systems, and as lead consultant for training and pedagogical program design.

Lindy has published in the fields of community development, anthropology, theology, and epistemology, and he is presently co-authoring a book on interfaith dialogue entitled Deep Listening, Deep Respect: Authentic Friendship as the Basis for Interfaith Understanding, soon to be published by Fortress Press. Lindy is also Chair of the Advisory Board for the Christian-Muslim Relations Team (CMRT) of Eastern Mennonite Missions.