Becoming Something with Jonathan Pokluda

Episode 389: Pretending God Is Real — Until He Wasn't | feat. Brian Guan

September 14, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

Brian Guan started making videos about pretending God was real as a content experiment. He was in Washington Square Park in New York, asking strangers about purpose, and noticed that Christians talked about their faith with a unique conviction — not as a set of guiding principles, but as a relationship. That distinction caught his attention. He couldn't rationalize belief, but he could get behind the idea of acting as if it were true, because he already believed that your thoughts shape your reality. So he asked AI for the basics: pray, read the Bible, practice gratitude, apply what you learn. Then he started filming himself doing those things, day after day, with no claim to actual faith.

The experiment that stopped being an experiment

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What you'll learn

1 (04:54) **How a Skeptic Decided to "Pretend God Is Real"** - Brian Guan explains his background as a non-believer raised by a Chinese Christian mother and why he started a social media experiment to see if acting like a Christian would change his life.
2 (08:47) **Day Five: The First Unexpected Change** - Brian recounts the moment his experiment produced a tangible, surprising result that made him question his skepticism.
3 (10:08) **What He Believes Today** - Brian gives his current confession of faith, describing the ongoing, non-binary nature of belief and the struggle between faith and feelings.
4 (13:37) **Wrestling with the Bible's Authority** - Brian honestly grapples with how much of the Bible he accepts as factual truth, a key point of tension in his new faith.
5 (18:02) **The Two Questions: Assurance of Salvation** - JP asks Brian the classic diagnostic questions about certainty of heaven and the basis for that certainty.
6 (20:35) **The Gradual Transformation Beyond Nicotine** - Brian describes the subtle, internal changes that accumulated over time and moved him from pretending to genuine belief.
7 (22:24) **The Spiritual Warfare Nightmares** - Brian shares a terrifying week of nightmares that acted as a catalyst for his final surrender, a key warning sign of spiritual attack.

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Show Notes

This week we sit down with Brian Guan, a content creator from New York City who went viral for going around pretending to be a Christian — and ended up actually becoming one. Just 12 days into his faith, Brian joins us live to talk about what happened when an experiment became real, the convictions he's already wrestling with, and what it looks like to follow Jesus when you're starting from scratch. This one is refreshing, honest, and a whole lot of fun!