John Berrien Lindsley (1822–1897) was an American Presbyterian minister and educator in Nashville, Tennessee.

Born in Princeton, New Jersey, and educated at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, he married an heiress to the Carnton plantation and ministered to slaves and the poor.

During the American Civil War of 1861-1865, he protected its campus buildings, and he was in charge of Confederate hospitals in Nashville.

[3] He returned to Nashville in 1847,[3] where he was appointed by the Presbyterian Board of Domestic Missions to preach to African slaves and poor whites.

[4] Lindsley was a lecturer in the Theological Department of Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tennessee, in 1848-1850.

[2] By 1850, he joined his father at the University of Nashville and co-founded the Medical Department alongside Dr. William K. Bowling and others.

[2] During those years, he oversaw the merger of the Western Military Institute with the University of Nashville, and he hired Prussian-born architect Adolphus Heiman to design Lindsley Hall, the main building on campus, which was completed in 1853.

[2] Meanwhile, Lindsley took trips with Gerard Troost to look for fossils in the Tennessee countryside, and considered becoming a geologist himself.

[1] During the American Civil War, Lindsley was responsible for protecting the University of Nashville from the Union Army.

Two of his granddaughters, Mary and Pierce, were the first and second wives of Luke Lea, who served as the Senator from Tennessee from 1911 to 1917.