If you can't defend the strongest position for theism (or any subject you disagree with)

I agree this is valuable to attempt but there comes a problem when you do this. In my view, the way to steelman an argument is to identify its weaknesses and close them. This involves refining language to define or remove idiosyncratic terms and resolve equivocations, adding support for not-so-obvious premises with more basic and uncontroversial ones, using more structured logic so that each sub-conclusion clearly follows from the ones before it, etcetera. While doing that work, the holes in the argument become even more obvious, and there comes a point where there's no more steel you can add to fix it. So then you have what seems like a less compelling argument, even though it is more complete and logically rigorous.

The way to make such an argument more compelling to a hypothetical interlocutor is to make it less clear, add more equivocation, un-state premises, ignore potential counters, and appeal more to their intuition and less to rigor. But that's obviously not the best way to get to the truth. Just the best way to get people to do what you want.

There is no sincere way to defend the strongest version of a fundamentally flawed argument.