The problem with 'winsomeness': Why this strategy is failing the Church

By Brooks Waldron, Op-ed contributor Thursday, April 02, 2026

As many others have pointed out over the past several years, in critiquing some aspects of Tim Keller's ministry and legacy, and of the Gospel-centered movement, there are real problems with the Keller-style “winsome” approach. This is an approach that sometimes, rather rigidly, says we must always seek to be winsome in our tone and approach, as not to cause offense.

Here are three simple observations regarding how this is an unbiblical and unhelpful approach.

The wrong starting place

To begin with, being winsome as a philosophy of ministry is fundamentally a misguided approach because its starting place is wrong. Winsomeness starts with man, instead of starting with God. In other words, this philosophy of ministry starts with an orientation toward humans by asking, “How will saying or doing this make others feel? Will it offend them? Will they be turned off to our church or to Christianity if they hear this?”

Now, while none of these questions or concerns are bad in themselves, and, in fact, Christians should seek to avoid putting any unnecessary stumbling block in the way of an unbeliever (see 2 Cor. 6:3 ), using this as a rigid guiding principle for how we do ministry or to govern what we say or do is not the right approach.

The place to begin, for both pastors and laypeople, ought to be by asking what God would have us do. In other words, how can we first be faithful to Christ and to the truth of His Word? Then we can ask how we can communicate that in the most helpful way. If we start from a place of not wanting to cause offense, we might find that we sacrifice faithfulness in the name of love for others.

Now I’m sure there are many who have embraced this philosophy of ministry who would deny the claim that they are seeking to be winsome in place of faithfulness to Christ. As they would point out, when Scripture itself instructs us to be thoughtful of outsiders, to avoid causing offense, etc., how can we know they are starting with man versus with God? A few questions may help to clarify this.

Is the value of being “winsome” or having the right “tone” prioritized over matters of doctrine and truth? Are we refusing to discuss things the Scriptures speak about or refusing to make application of Scripture out of fear for how it will be taken by our hearers? Would we refuse to have a fellow elder or pastor who doesn’t consistently fall in line with a particular tone, even though he meets the qualifications of an elder laid out by Paul? I would suggest that if our answers to these questions are yes, then winsomeness might just be the fear of man operating as a philosophy of ministry.

A subjective guide

Now, the other way you know that winsomeness is an unhelpful philosophy of ministry is that, in addition to starting with man instead of with God, it is also an inherently subjective guide rather than an objective one. Rather than starting with the objective truth of God’s Word, which informs us both on the message and the manner of our words and conduct with others, it starts with the subjective feelings of people.

For those who embrace this approach in our country today, we could ask, “Be winsome to whom?” Of course, the typical answer, rarely acknowledged, is winsome to the cultural elite or the Progressive Left. Rarely does a person with this philosophy of ministry intend to be winsome to someone on the far right, or even the mainstream right. Rather, those who hold to this strategy are generally operating under what Joe Rigney has called “the progressive gaze” — a continuous leftward glance to see what the Progressives would think of what they are saying or doing.

Again, if we are making the subjective feelings of others the guide for what we say or do, I do not know how we avoid the charge of being governed by the fear of man rather than the fear of God.

A path to dishonesty

The next concern I see with winsomeness as a philosophy of ministry is that it leads to dishonesty. If we make as our guiding principle to make our message as inoffensive as possible, we are inevitably going to shirk away from sharing difficult biblical truths.

J. Gresham Machen, the great Princeton and Westminster seminary theologian, observed this over 100 years ago in his book Christianity and Liberalism:

Few desires on the part of religious teachers have been more harmfully exaggerated than the desire to ‘avoid giving offense.’ Only too often that desire has come perilously near dishonesty; the religious teacher, in his hear of hearts, is well aware of the radicalism of his views, but is unwilling to relinquish his place in the hallowed atmosphere of the Church by speaking his whole mind. Against all such policy of concealment or palliation, our sympathies are altogether with those men, whether radicals or conservatives, who have a passion for light.^[i]

How relevant this quote is to our present situation in the American Church. Machen points out how the admirable desire to “avoid giving offense” can easily be co-opted by a people-pleasing heart such that a Christian leader will be dishonest regarding his views, concealing them or “palliating” them; that is, smoothing the edges so as to minimize the offense.

While this surely has been a perennial danger for Christian leaders since the time of the apostles, this practice of concealing or softening difficult truths was codified into a philosophy of ministry with the advent of the “seeker-sensitive” movement of the 1980s and '90s, most often associated with Bill Hybel’s Willow Creek Church.

More recently, many in the so-called Gospel-centered movement have likewise embraced the same philosophy. Hide, or at the very least, minimize discussion of difficult biblical topics such as the doctrine of Hell, roles of men and women, sanctity of human life, politics, etc.

The logic of this way of thinking goes: Share the Gospel first, and then, later, once the person becomes a believer, they will slowly open up to these more difficult truths and can be discipled to embrace them. Share them too early, and they may be turned off, never to return to Christianity.

Contrast this method with the apostle Paul: “We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God” (2 Corinthians 4:2). Or consider Paul’s assessment of his ministry in Ephesus: “I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable” (Acts 20:20). Are we to believe that the Apostle Paul would have our leaders not teach profitable things, not declare the whole counsel of God, selectively teach or minimize scriptural truths in an attempt to avoid giving offense? The idea is laughable.

Christians and pastors ought to be gracious, with speech seasoned with salt, not giving unnecessary offense. Those who advocate for a winsome approach generally mean by this that yes, there ought to be a way of speaking and interacting that is winsome.

But they take it further than that.

Typically, they include in winsomeness a refusal, or at least a hesitation, to speak on certain topics. So, for instance, sharing biblical truths or controversial ideas is considered taboo. But if our understanding of what it means to be winsome prevents us from sharing or even discussing certain biblical topics with people, then I’d suggest that’s a sign we have sacrificed faithfulness and replaced it with people-pleasing. That appears to be the very sort of “shrinking” that Paul sought to avoid in his ministry to the Ephesians.

A better way

As Christians, and especially as Christian leaders, the charge is to “put no obstacle in anyone’s way” (2 Cor. 6:3), to seek to have a “good reputation with outsiders” (1 Tim. 3:7), and to have one’s “speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt” (Col. 4:6). However, while these commands must always be kept in the forefront of our minds, we cannot ignore the equally important task of being truthful. Yes, we must speak the truth in love, but we still must speak the truth (Eph. 4:15). That means not sugar-coating the truth, softening its edges, hiding its implications, which are all ways of being dishonest about the truth. No, we must, in love, speak the truth.

Unfortunately, far too many Evangelical church leaders today, both in the seeker-sensitive variety of churches, and now also in many self-identified Gospel-centered churches, have shifted from this biblical command to what amounts to people-pleasing. But we cannot start with the perception of our listeners if we want to determine what is or is not loving for them to hear. We must start with God and His Word. And, without letting go of the need for seasoned speech and hearts of love, we must nevertheless be rigidly truthful, not shrinking from declaring anything profitable, not shrinking from declaring the whole counsel of God, refusing to appease the itching ears of our listeners, but instead openly stating the truth, and not seeking to remove the offense of the cross.

I pray the Evangelical Church may be freed from its obsession with “shrinking” winsomeness and regain its voice as the bold, prophetic, albeit always loving proclaimer of the whole counsel of God.

[i] J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (Las Vegas, NV: Hobo Co., 2024), 16.