A clip from an interview of Brandon Lake on “The Bryce Crawford Podcast” in April has gone viral after he appeared to be criticizing songs that are too Christian. He cited the hypothetical situation of “Bubba,” who has been dragged to church unwillingly. “Last thing I’ll say is, I’d love to see more worship sets, more churches kind of keep Bubba in mind. We call him Bubba: the guy who’s in the back of the room and he got dragged there by his wife. And I just don’t know if, when your opening song or the most of your songs have so much Christianese language, I think he has a hard time going like, ‘Can I sing that? Like, I’m not there yet,’” said Lake.

He said lyrics like “Holy, Holy, Holy” can be off putting to a person like Bubba. “I think [Bubba] hears a ‘Hard Fought Hallelujah’ — and I’m not saying ‘Hard Fought’ is the answer — but I love when your first song is like, ‘Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty,’ I think he’s going like, ‘What does ‘holy’ mean? Like, holy crap? What?’ I don’t know.” Despite his concerns about how such language might be inaccessible to Bubba, Lake said he does want someone like Bubba to get more comfortable with the overtly Christian worship songs.

The resurfaced comments set off a flurry of debate on social media. Jon Root criticized the comments, claiming the comments were the fruits of the “seek-friendly” movement. “This is the fruit of Bethel church & the seeker-sensitive movement – watering down the Gospel to make it more ‘digestible’ for unbelievers Brandon Lake would rather entertain & compromise, than disciple & present theologically rich, Jesus-focused music,” he wrote. Another user, however, pushed back. “That’s a very dishonest characterization of what he said,” said the user. “He is saying he wants to start a service with songs that appeal to potential unsaved audiences, and progress to more theologically rich songs… I don’t think there’s anything wrong with using a less theologically deep song with lyrics that engage the everyday person as a way to lead them into a worship service. That seems very uncontroversial to me.”

In an op-ed for Clear Truth , Mike Edwards argued that “Bubba ain’t as dumb as you think.” “Imagine inviting someone over who’s never seen The Lord of the Rings trilogy but only showing them the trailer because “they aren’t ready for the whole movie.” After all, the movie has strange languages and names and lots of backstories to learn to make sense of what you’re seeing.

That’s what we’re doing to Bubba,” he wrote. Edwards argued that such “dumbing down” of Christianity was hurting people like Bubba. Let’s be clear: nobody ever walked into church for the first time expecting it to sound like a Coldplay concert. Even if the church tried to larp (and many sadly do) like Bubba’s favorite band, the truth is that Bubba doesn’t need catchy choruses to change; He needs Christ,” he added. He said the truth of the Gospel should be presented as it is, not watered down. The understanding has to be left up to God. “The church’s job isn’t to sound more like the culture. It’s to sound more like heaven—and trust the Spirit to do the translating.”