“You know, I was telling you I was raised Catholic, Christian,” said Hudak.
“I still identify as such, but I went through a very trying time in my life a few years ago,” he said, “and at that same time, for what luck would have it, intervention, the universe, I picked up a book about Buddhism by the late Buddhist monk Thích Nhất Hạnh.”
“He wrote a wonderful book called ‘Living Buddha, Living Christ’ too, which I highly recommend,” said Hudak. “And at that time, as I read it, it illuminated so many answers to me as I was going through this thing. I had a family member who was sick, and it really kind of held me, held me together.”
Hudak went on to ask Lake if there was “room” for him in the Christian church and faith, as well as in CCM and Lake’s music. Hudak did not specify what he meant by there being “room” for him in Christian music or in the Christian faith.
“I would so hope that you felt like the doors were open,” Lake answered. “I think Jesus would love to sit down with you, would love to have this conversation with—and you can, I would hope the church would also be that open. Like, why would you not have a place here?”
“Even if we disagree on something,” said Lake, “is that not what the church is supposed to be, is a community?…We might go, ‘Hey, we believe this,’ but if you don’t agree, why would our doors be closed to you?”
Lake said that, from what he recalls in the Bible, the only type of people Jesus “would kind of shoo away or kind of snap at was the Pharisee” or people who “would shame people, when [the Pharisees have] got sin in their own lives, they’ve got questions in their own lives.”
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“And so I can believe what I can believe and still be able to sit down and share a meal and go, we might not align on these things,” said Lake, “but doesn’t God call me to love you and to listen? And you might read something from that book that’s like, oh, man, that makes me think, like, I need to spend more time, you know, doing this or that.”
“I think there’s something we can all learn from one another,” said the music artist, “even if I know, I believe [that] this is the way for me, this is a way for mankind to have a relationship with God. But I think there’s so much that can be gleaned from sitting down across the table.”
