When winsome fails

Winsomeness once felt like a shield. If Christians could lie low, keep the tone civil, and speak as softly as a down pillow, the cultural arbiters might leave us alone. Last spring, Scotland passed a hate speech law so broad that author J.K. Rowling—no one’s idea of an evangelical firebrand—dared police to arrest her for tweeting that men aren’t women. At the time, my friend John Stonestreet quipped on WORLD’s Culture Friday: “You can be as winsome as you want; it won’t stop this movement from enforcing compliance.”

Stonestreet and his family live in Colorado, where the state legislature has just proved his point. Buoyed by a Democratic supermajority, it pushed through the “Kelly Loving Act,” turning everyday pronouns and proper names into potential civil rights violations. A brave stand by nearly 700 Coloradans—10 to 1 against—in a last-ditch public hearing at the Capitol may have forced a concession. Lawmakers stripped a clause that would have branded non-­affirming parents as abusers in custody court. Nevertheless: “Take half the cyanide out of a poison cocktail,” Stonestreet told me, “and it’ll still kill you.”

Legislation like this does not arise in a vacuum. It grows where moral vocabulary has withered. Andrew Walker, a WORLD Opinions editor and ethics professor, argues that we’ve skipped Genesis in our preaching. Evangelicals can wax eloquent on sin and salvation but grow tongue-tied about what God called good—family, male and female, moral order. Third-way pulpits traded “In the beginning” for “Let’s not be political,” and as the shepherds went silent, the state found its voice. Now it wants to regulate yours.

I’ve heard the kind of sermons Walker critiques: The pastor names the chaos of gender ideology, then concludes the Church’s task is simply evangelism—changed hearts change culture, and legislation can’t change hearts. True, yet not true enough. Picture a drunk driver barreling toward a red light. You don’t form a prayer circle and hope he repents before he kills somebody. Prayer is essential, but so are the shouted warning, the 911 call, and even tougher DUI laws if penalties don’t deter. Sometimes love has a larynx. A Christianity that whispers “Come to Jesus” but never stands athwart the culture yelling “Stop!” resembles a traffic officer who sees the drunk blow through the intersection and shrugs because tickets can’t change hearts. Laws don’t regenerate souls, but they keep children safe on the sidewalk.

Meanwhile the cultural ground beneath our pews is shifting. Analyst David Shor says young men are drifting right faster than any group in 60 years. Political scientist Ryan Burge charted the behavior of white voters in 2024 and found a stark divide: Religiously skip church and you vote deep blue; slip in even for Christmas Eve and the data mark you Republican.

Paradoxically, those most hungry for moral clarity often hear none. They arrive wondering whether Genesis still matters and find the sermon clearing its throat and changing the subject. We have perfected—Walker’s phrase—“all grace, no nature.”

I’m not urging pastors to swap the pulpit for a stump speech, but the job description for shepherds includes guarding sheep and naming wolves. When the state insists that calling a boy “he” carries a price, Christians don’t need a third way. They need a clear one.

So, here’s a modest proposal: Declare without apology that the bodies God gave us are good gifts, not disorders to be surgically or chemically destroyed. Celebrate the ordinary goods of marriage, motherhood, and rightly ordered national loyalty. Say it early, often, and loudly enough that even the visitor in the back row knows the Church speaks in real sentences about real life. A pastor friend of mine, Rob Looper, reminded me that Francis Schaeffer called public moral clarity “pre‑evangelism”—truth‑telling that tills the soil for gospel seed. Looper says the same thing in two words: No retreat.

Won’t that sound partisan? Perhaps, but silence is its own endorsement—of the status quo. Colorado codified compelled speech because, for a decade, polite pulpits chose quietism over courage.

Stonestreet calls the Colorado legislation a “beachhead.” Beachheads, history reminds us, are rolled back only when someone advances. I see rising hunger for a message rooted in Eden’s soil, spoken firmly, kindly, truthfully—in nouns and pronouns that still mean something.

The season for third-way evasions is over. It’s first-things season again.