The SBC’s Executive Committee and several other SBC entities cut ties with Guidepost Solutions, which investigated how SBC leaders had dealt with the issue of abuse, after Baptist leaders, including Hinkle, condemned Guidepost for a Pride Month tweet.
He was also outspoken in politics. Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed a complaint against Hinkle in 2012 after he endorsed several candidates in his Pathway column and shared his support for a candidate on social media.
Hinkle was also a champion of Christian journalism, saying there was a need for journalists who pursue truth because of their faith.
“They do not lie or play ‘gotcha’ journalism, but relentlessly search for truth and report it with the goal of glorifying Jesus,” he wrote.
Southern Baptist Convention president Bart Barber said he first got to know Hinkle when the editor published a piece he had written about SBC history—one of the first times his writings had appeared in a denominational publication. The two also shared a commitment to religious liberty.
Hinkle, he said, was a successful editor of a Baptist newspaper at a time when religious journalism, like all journalism, faces steep obstacles. That’s no small matter, he said.
“What Don was trying to do was not just make his newspaper go—but to improve the health of Southern Baptists in Missouri and across the country,” Barber said. “I never doubted that he was trying to do what he thought was the right thing.”
His colleagues at the Missouri Baptist Convention praised Hinkle’s devotion to his calling.
“Don fought the good fight, kept the faith and finished the race,” The Pathway said in a social media post. “With hope in Christ, we heartily believe he has now received the Lord’s commendation, ‘Well, done, good and faithful servant.’”
He was preceded in death by his wife, Bernadette, who died in 2016.
This article originally appeared here.
