Charles Eric Lincoln

Charles Eric Lincoln was born in Athens, Alabama, on June 23, 1924, and was raised there by his maternal grandparents. After wartime service in the United States Navy, he earned a bachelor's degree from LeMoyne College in 1947, a master's degree from Fisk University in 1954, a divinity degree from the University of Chicago in 1956, and a doctorate in social ethics from Boston University in 1960. He was ordained a Methodist minister in 1957.

Lincoln became a leading scholar of African American religion, race, and culture. He held academic and administrative posts at Clark College, Fisk University, Union Theological Seminary, and other institutions, and taught religion and culture at Duke University from 1976 until 1993. His major works include The Black Muslims in America, Race, Religion and the Continuing American Dilemma, and, with Lawrence H. Mamiya, The Black Church in the African American Experience. His novel The Avenue, Clayton City also received significant literary recognition.

In 1987 Lincoln responded to an invitation from the United Methodist Hymnal Revision Committee to write texts using a broad range of images for God. Of the three texts he submitted, How Like a Gentle Spirit was selected. Its concern for divine universality, human unity, and love belongs naturally beside his lifelong work on race, religion, and reconciliation. Lincoln died in Durham, North Carolina, on May 14, 2000.